As one last act of foolishness before being acquired through Microsoft, Activision tainted the legacy of Call of Duty in a way we’ve never noticed before. According to internal reports, Activision rejected a proposal for a sequel to Advanced Warfare and asked Sledgehammer to prepare a new crusade for Modern Warfare 3 in just 16 months, a task that, originally, was just an expansion of the game from previous years, but later turned into a “full” $70 offer.
Now that multiplayer has joined single-player mode in the live game, critic ratings are rising. The result? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the lowest-scoring game in the history of the series. It’s also the lowest score yet.
I’ve compiled the Call of Duty game list and its related Metascore below so you can see the discrepancy that exists. In opposite chronological order:
While admittedly, Call of Duty has noticed its scores drop in recent years, and it’s never been close to its MW1-MW2 glory days, i. e. a 22-point drop from last year’s Modern Warfare 2, and still 20. issues under the lowest, Vanguard. These scores make it the highest-rated PS5 game of 2023 out of 199 overall. The games below are like Quantum Error and the terrible game Gollum. That’s among the big flops of 2023 like Redfall (56) and Forgotten (64).
This is going to have to be a wake-up call for Microsoft, which wants to take over that handling of intellectual property and move away from this crazy Activision schedule to release increasingly terrible annual fees just for something, anything to sell over the course of time. Scores slowly approaching the 70s are one thing. A 53 with a user score of 1. 4/10 is almost criminal, and whoever gave Activision the gentle green deserves to disappear and be replaced as soon as possible. Was it Bobby? It was probably Bobby.
Call of Duty can’t die, but it’s indeed a critical injury that will have to be corrected in time, even if it means breaking that annual cycle that it wants to take place at this point. They can’t do it again.
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