Major spoilers ahead for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s campaign.Much like its predecessors, the campaign mode in Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 takes players on a whirlwind world tour as they take down terrorists and other evildoers. But while Modern Warfare 3 contains many of the features fans have come to expect from the franchise, from the far-flung locales of its levels to its over-the-top set piece sequences, the choice to follow a familiar formula with the game’s final act feels like a missed opportunity. Rather than having players save the day with seconds to spare, letting antagonist Vladimir Makarov’s villainous plan succeed could have raised the stakes ahead of the franchise’s next entry.
Modern Warfare 3’s Trojan Horse level represents a mostly thrilling finale, and a welcome respite from the controversial Open Combat missions that make up much of the campaign, but some players found its conclusion underwhelming. Not only do the mission’s closing moments, in which players alternate between eliminating enemies and defusing a terrorist bomb, feel similar to Modern Warfare 2’s final act, but they rob the story of what could have been a darker and more interesting conclusion. By simply having the heroes save the day as expected, Modern Warfare 3 missed a chance to end its campaign with a bang.
Letting Makarov Succeed Would've Raised the Stakes for the Next Modern Warfare Game
By the time players reach Trojan Horse, they’ve already thwarted Makarov’s plans once. Earlier in the campaign, he’d tried unsuccessfully to frame Farah Karim’s nation of Urzikstan for an attack on a passenger plane. After that scheme failed and his chemical weapons cache was destroyed, Makarov strikes back by planting a bomb in the Channel Tunnel between England and France. This move drastically raises the stakes, putting hundreds of civilian lives and a vital piece of infrastructure on the line, but the threat is resolved almost as immediately as it appears.
While disarming Makarov’s bomb comes at a cost to Modern Warfare 3’s protagonists, the entire scheme being revealed and resolved within a matter of minutes saps much of the tension from the scenario. A bolder choice would have been for Sledgehammer Games to let Makarov’s attack succeed, with the members of Task Force 141 barely escaping with their lives and forced to contend with the fallout. This would have established Makarov as a real threat to the world and served as a callback to the original Modern Warfare series.
 | Who is Vladimir Makarov? |
Bio | A Russian ultranationalist and head of his own mercenary army, Vladimir Makarov represents an existential threat to Task Force 141 and the Western world as a whole. |
Campaign Appearances | Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009 | 2022), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011 | 2023), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered |
A Makarov Victory Would Have Channeled the Original Modern Warfare 3
The original version of Makarov is defeated in 2011’s Modern Warfare 3, but his downfall comes only after he’s already unleashed a series of devastating chemical attacks across Europe. Letting Makarov’s scheme succeed in the new game would have served as both a callback to its predecessor and a drastic escalation of his war on the West. The panicked reaction of world governments to this new threat would have made a great backdrop for Modern Warfare 4’s story.
Although Modern Warfare 3’s version of Vladimir Makarov has shown himself to be equally as evil as his initial incarnation, having his plans fail to come to fruition leads to an anticlimactic ending to the game’s campaign. By choosing to end Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with a whimper rather than a bang, Sledgehammer Games missed a chance to make this version of Makarov the most menacing one yet.
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)
Released in November of 2023, Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) continues Captain Price's story from the 2019 and 2022 games.
