Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been officially revealed with an in-game event inside of Warzone, and plenty of details were announced in a blog post by Activision, including Zombies mode, changes to perks, beta details, and more.
MW3 release date and preorder details
Modern Warfare 3 releases on November 10 across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox series X|S, and PC. The game will have a standard $70 edition and a pricey Vault Edition with a number of other extras, and you can find all the preorder details here.
Preordering Modern Warfare 3 will come with a few perks, including early access to the open beta and seven days early access to the game’s campaign.
Campaign details
The game will have a full campaign that picks up immediately where the story left off in Modern Warfare 2, and as previously teased in the first Modern Warfare 3 trailer, the campaign focuses on Vladimir Makarov, who was a main antagonist of the original Modern Warfare franchise.
Activision describes this campaign as having more player choice than ever before with “operations ranging from signature, cinematic experiences to free-form Open
Combat Missions.”
Open Combat Missions will give players numerous additional choices regarding their methods for completing missions. For example, choosing stealth techniques and equipment for a sneaky approach, or choosing explosive equipment and extra armor to go into a mission with guns blazing.
Players will have more open areas to complete missions with various tactics, and any vehicles in the area can be used for more player choice.
Multiplayer maps and modes
It’s going to be a year of nostalgia as all 16 maps from 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are remastered for Modern Warfare 3’s launch. The maps include Highrise, Sub Base, Estate, Terminal, Wasteland, Afghan, Rust, Underpass, Invasion, Karachi, Quarry, Skid Row, Scrapyard, Favela, and Derail. These classic maps will be updated with new gameplay features and new game modes.
Additionally, more than 12 all-new core 6v6 maps will arrive for Modern Warfare 3’s post-launch seasons.
There will be three battle maps available specifically for large-scale Ground War modes, and one “colossal-size” map for the objective-based War mode, which was originally introduced in Call of Duty: World War II.
Map voting is also confirmed to return, so players will have more choice in the maps they play each match.
Perks and minimap changes
Modern Warfare 3 will bring back the classic minimap, which means that red dots will appear in the minimap when enemies fire unsilenced weapons. In recent Call of Duty games, the minimap hasn’t shown the position of enemy players if they used unsuppressed guns, and players relied more heavily on the UAV streak to get the additional map intel.
Modern Warfare 2 changed up the perk system with the need to earn perks during the match, but Modern Warfare 3 returns to a classic perk system of having all perks in the loadout available at the start of the match. The only major difference is perks will be based on military equipment, such as gloves, tactical vests, boots and more. Specific details haven’t been revealed, but Activision confirms a version of Dead Silent perk is returning as part of the Covert Sneakers Perk for silent movement.
Zombies
For the first time ever, Treyarch’s Zombies mode is coming to the Modern Warfare series with a Dark Aether storyline. This won’t be traditional round-based Zombies, but instead an open-world experience with survival elements and PvE extraction. It sounds like a mash-up between Warzone’s DMZ and Black Ops Cold War’s objective-based Outbreak mode, with rounds that escalate in difficulty.
MW2 weapons and cosmetics will carry over
For the first time in Call of Duty history, weapons, operators, camos, and more will transfer over to the new game. There will be a few restrictions in place, but here we break down everything you need to know about Call of Duty’s “Carry Forward” content plan for Modern Warfare 3.
Additionally, Activision announced that Call of Duty will have one unified hub for games moving forward. Called the Call of Duty HQ, players will be able to use the hub to access Modern Warfare 2, Warzone, Modern Warfare 3, and future Call of Duty content all in one place.
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