A Sparsely Populated Battlefield Makes Modern Warfare 3’s Zombies Mode Feel Lifeless

Game ZXC

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)

Highlights

The shift to a larger map in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies slows down gameplay and makes the mode feel more like a fetch quest than a thrilling zombie shooter.
The sparse population of zombies in the streets of Urzikstan and the lack of powerful enemies result in the mode feeling lifeless and lacking in true threats.
The introduction of AI-controlled mercenaries adds some variety to the action, but their presence fails to significantly increase the pace of play or break up the monotony.

When it was first revealed that big changes were in store for the gameplay in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies, many long-time players of the fan-favorite mode were understandably skeptical. Treyarch and Sledgehammer Studios’ choice to abandon the smaller, tightly focused locations found in previous entries in favor of a single, massive map, Modern Warfare 3 Zombies represented a radical reimagining of the popular multiplayer mode. But, while this change gives gamers far more room to maneuver as they make their way across the map, the surprisingly low number of undead opponents shambling through the streets of Urzikstan can leave Modern Warfare 3 Zombies feeling lifeless.

The sparsely populated streets of Urzikstan not only stand in stark contrast to the dark and deadly locales found in prior incarnations of Call of Duty Zombies, but they also serve to slow down the pace of play. This shift in gameplay results in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies having a noticeably different feel than previous entries, sharing more in common with Call of Duty: Warzone’s DMZ mode than the straightforward shooting fans are familiar with. The result is a Zombies mode that lacks much of the visceral thrill of its predecessors, with even the newly-introduced mercenaries failing to decrease downtime and break up the monotony.

The Massive, Mostly Empty Urzikstan Map Leads to Excessive Downtime in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies

While the move to a larger map had the potential to introduce some intriguing new wrinkles to the mode’s familiar formula, the sheer scale of Urzikstan means that players will have plenty of downtime as they move between objectives. Although the titular zombies are a constant presence on the battlefield, they often appear in small numbers and can be easily dispatched. This leads to them feeling more like a minor nuisance than any sort of true threat, one to be quickly dispatched before moving on to the next contract.

This drastically altered pacing results in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies matches often feeling like little more than fetch quests, with zombies offering only limited resistance. Although the undead opponents become more powerful as players venture deeper into the map over the course of Operation Deadbolt’s three acts, the only time they appear in the sorts of numbers many players were likely hoping for is when they swarm the landing area during extraction. Even the addition of heavily armed human mercenaries to the mix largely fails to break up the monotony.

Modern Warfare 3 Zombies’ Mercenaries Break Up the Monotony, But Not By Much

Although the AI-controlled mercenaries in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies add some variety to the action, their introduction does little to speed up the overall pace of play. Challenges like eliminating a mercenary convoy provide for a few minutes of thrilling gameplay, but after that, players will find themselves driving or running across the map once more to grab their next contract. Much like their undead counterparts, the human opponents in Modern Warfare 3 simply don’t appear with the numbers or frequency needed to keep the action moving at a steady clip.

With neither its living nor undead antagonists providing much more than token resistance to players’ advances, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies largely fails to live up to the high bar established by its predecessors. And while shooting down swarms of zombies in the final seconds of a match is undeniably thrilling, the mode would have benefited from placing these massive hordes throughout the map rather than only unleashing them during extraction. Between underwhelming numbers of enemies and a far too massive map, the end result is a Modern Warfare 3 Zombies mode that feels disappointingly lifeless compared to what came before.