Modern Warfare 4 is out now, with critics calling it a return to form for Call of Duty

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 came out in full today, October 23, after an early access period, Pure Xbox reports. Critics have mostly liked it. A GamesIndustry.biz roundup of reviews notes that Infinity Ward’s game has a Metacritic score of 84, which the site rates as generally favorable, and that many reviewers see it as a return to form for the series.

The stakes for Activision are high. According to GamesIndustry.biz, last year’s Black Ops 7 went over poorly with both critics and players, and third-party tracking data pointed to sales well below other entries in the series.

Among the reviews collected, Game Informer’s Michael Murphy gave the game 8.5/10, The Guardian’s Keith Stuart gave it 4/5, and Nintendo Life’s Gavin Lane gave the Switch 2 version 9/10. IGN’s Simon Cardy has published a review in progress covering the campaign.

The story picks up where the 2023 entry left off. It centers on a fictional North Korean invasion of South Korea, while Captain Price is on the run after the events of Modern Warfare 3. Stuart says the campaign lasts about six hours. Reviewers enjoyed an open-world section where players forage, rebuild outposts and craft gear. Cardy called Price’s missions the weaker half of the story, and he disliked the harsh stealth sections and the imprecise counter-based melee. Murphy wrote that the effort to wrap up the rebooted series’ story mostly succeeds but rushes some character arcs.

In multiplayer, Murphy said the movement isn’t as fluid as in recent Black Ops games, but he praised the range of maps and weapons and the new Combat Outpost and Hijack modes. Stuart highlighted Kill Block, a mode that builds each match from randomly selected terrain pieces and can randomize weapons too. Lane found the 32v32 Ground War: Combat Outpost mode repetitive.

Critics praised DMZ, the new extraction mode, even though it is still in early access. Murphy called it “the definitive CoD extraction shooter.” Stuart cautioned that its future depends on whether Activision can lure players away from rivals such as Arc Raiders and Escape from Tarkov.

Modern Warfare 4 is also the first Call of Duty released on a Nintendo console since 2013. Digital Legends made the Switch 2 version, which supports crossplay and cross-progression. Its campaign runs at 30fps and multiplayer aims for 60fps. Lane said that despite this, the game “feels smooth in the hands.”