Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered Review

Call of Duty: Remastered is a 2016 reboot of the hugely successful Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare which made its appearance in 2007. This game very quickly racked up large amounts of awards and is often considered to be one of the best first person shooters for that current generation of console. So, ensuring that the remaster of the game would live up to the huge hype surrounding it would be hugely important. Activision did not let fans down with the remaster of this game giving the whole game a huge overhaul of texturing, rendering, lighting and overall gameplay experience.

Throughout the campaign players are given control of many different characters which follows a gripping story of a civil war that has broken out in Russia. This sees the player exploring many different environments to try and eliminate the main antagonists Imran Zakhaev and Khaled Al-Asad. This storyline still stands the test of time, and in my opinion remains one of the best single player experiences that can be found in a first-person shooter.

With the Call of Duty franchise in recent years having much more dynamic gameplay with players being able to utilise more airborne styles of combat with the addition of Exo-Movement in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Although many fans agreed that this new addition was a breath of fresh air to the franchise they also felt that it took CoD away from its successful boots on the ground gameplay which had been perfected over the years. This lead to the remastering of the game to allow for these experiences to be re-lived by fans.

The gameplay has been very much untouched and feels exactly how it used to be with fast passed action throughout in both the single player and multiplayer aspects of the game. The single player experience is as immersive as ever. Stealth missions still being filled with tension throughout, and epic gun fights being equally as exhilarating. The multiplayer has remained as expected and has been given extra game-modes which have been successful in games following its release. The multiplayer has also received extra content with the addition of the successful crate system that has been implemented in other newer versions of Call of Duty. These crates provide players with camos, guns and new appearances that can be redeemed with tokens earned in-game or either micro-transactions. The introduction of having these micro-transactions added in the old version of this game has also had mixed reviews from fans, however, undoubtedly adds another element to the game which will help keep it fresh for the months following its release.

Personally, I feel Activision have gone above and beyond what was expected with the remastering of this game. It wasn’t a simple retexturing of assets, many of the old assets have been removed and recreated altogether to bring them up to the modern standard that should be expected. The visuals and audio that can now be found in the game have been revitalized and have players immersed once again. Many of the glitches and issues that were found in the older version have also been addressed, the out of map exploits that players were able to access in the older version of the game have been addressed and given their very own traditional Call of Duty Teddy easter egg.

One of the downsides with this release was the huge price tag that it was presented with, my own purchase of the game came to around £80, granted this also came alongside Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, a standalone version of the game would have been much more suited to many of the audience which purchased the game. Another aspect of the game which people found disappointing was with the original release of the game, was that a few of the much-loved maps were unable to be played as they were still being developed. However, Activision did reassure fans quickly that the maps were still being developed to the standard of every other map that had been included.

Upon completing Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered and achieving the platinum trophy recently (following the completion of the time-consuming and increasingly frustrating mile high club) I had felt like I had conquered my childhood all over again. If any fans of the original game have not yet purchased the remastered version then I would recommend they do so for an amazing nostalgia overload. For fans of the franchise that haven’t had an opportunity to play the original version of the game I would also suggest picking this up to find out where the Call of Duty franchise found its feet.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.