Editorial | Modern Warfare (2007): How it changed the first person shooter landscape.

By Sam Coles:

With the announcement of Modern Warfare (2019) I thought I would take a look back at the original 2007 game, as it did change the landscape of first person shooters where there were a lot of World War II shooters at the time. Call of Duty 4 was a huge influence in the industry, as it shifted from the standard formula while at the same time stripping things back and making aspects really intense.

Call of Duty 4’s development stems back to when they were making Call of Duty 2, Infinity Ward wanted to release this game around 2005. However Activision wanted another World War II game as it was still profitable, however when it came to the fourth instalment Infinity Ward insisted and we got the ground breaking title we know and love today.

The game takes place in 2011 where “The world is in great shape” to quote Gaz, where there is a power struggle in Russia with government loyalist and ultra-nationalists at each other’s throats with 15,000 nukes in the mix. The plot of Call of Duty 4 may come across as a standard and generic Tom Clancy romp, however it’s the dialogue and delivery that gives this eerie and horrifying undertone to quote Captain Price “Just another day at the office”. It’s this causal approach to the situation that is rather jarring as they see this world of war and violence for a lack of better words normal, it also stems from one of the notable missions in the game “Death from Above”.

“Death from Above” sees you take control of an AC130 gunship where you cover Captain Price’s team, what stands out immediately is the visual presentation where it looks very realistic with the thermal camera. To this day the game looks like you are looking through a monitor of an AC130, not just that when you gun down hostiles you get the chatter from the crew with lines such as “Hot damn” or “Kaboom”. It’s this banter that has an almost dark sense of humour, however as a soldier I expect you have to have a bit of a dark sense of humour and somewhat of a cynical mind set with what they see each day.

Modern Warfare’s narrative is delivered in a way to never take control from the player, now this may make you laugh but the game takes a lot of ques from Half-Life. At the time Half-Life was exceedingly popular as the latest episode for Half-Life 2 was out at the time. Call of Duty 4 doesn’t really have traditional cutscenes to speak of, with the exception of the briefing screens before each mission, when the game starts it never takes control from you and drip feeds the narrative to you at a steady pace and immerses you in the warzone. Parallels to Half-Life are more apparent with the car segment at the start of the game, where you are thrown into the shoes of an imprisoned president of a Middle Eastern nation. It’s an on rails experience, however it shows the destruction and devastation that the dictatorship and terrorism has caused in the unspecified country, it really sets up conflict.

After that lengthy discussion about the narrative, let’s get to the game part of the video game, now Call of Duty has always been maligned for its linear structure; however this game gives different routes to that linear goal in some of its levels. Yes the over direction of the game during the campaign is fairly straight forward, but levels like Warpig let you move around and let you decide how you want to progress through the relentless fighting.  Before Modern Warfare 2 Call of Duty 4 doesn’t drag you down a claustrophobic corridor while dangling a Christmas light at the end of it, yes there are moments where you trail behind someone like a Pavlovian dog but they are not as common like in later titles. The game goes “Well you could follow my every instruction”, where you then blow your cover, but it doesn’t start form last checkpoint it just carries on. The game at a basic level treats you like an adult.

Multiplayer was a step forward at the time too, as they introduced a system you would see in role playing games and not shooters with a XP bar and character classes. This is what hooked players as it gave steady drip feed of rewarding unlocks, whether it be guns, camos, perks etc. it felt like you were progressing and no just doing the same thing over and over. This model is something that other shooters and games in general would try and replicate, with varying degrees of success. It’s something that can still be felt in shooters today, as much as people like to down talk the series these days.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a classic game that cemented itself in the gaming landscape back in 2007, to this day people are still talking about it and that is truly the sign of a classic game. From its grounded and gritty depiction of “modern” combat scenarios, and ground breaking formula with multiplayer it something you should experience at least once. Plus there is a shiny re-release in the form of the 2016 remaster, so there is no excuse really.