The Game
Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 4 closes out the rebooted Modern Warfare saga, and it arrived carrying a franchise reset on its back. Black Ops 7, last year’s entry, was panned by critics and players alike — one roundup puts its Metacritic at just 65 — which left MW4 with two jobs to do at once: wrap up a storyline years in the making, and win back trust in the biggest name in shooters.
And the setup swings big, bigger than anything the series has attempted in years. War erupts on the Korean Peninsula when North Korea launches a full-scale invasion, threatening to destabilize the whole world. On one side of the story you fight through collapsing front lines as a young squad of South Korean soldiers; half a world away, a vengeful Captain Price is waging a personal war from the shadows. So it’s a dual-perspective campaign — part war epic, part character-driven revenge story, and the two halves keep feeding into each other.
It launched October 23, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2 — the first Call of Duty to appear on a Nintendo platform since 2013. Right now it’s the best-selling game on Steam, where early user reviews sit at “Very Positive” with 91% of players recommending it.
What Critics Love
If there’s one thing reviewers agree on, it’s this: the campaign is the strongest Call of Duty has produced in years. Destructoid gave it 9/10, calling it “Call of Duty’s strongest argument for a full-length development cycle” and praising three distinct, fleshed-out modes packed into one game. Game Informer went 8.5/10 and called it “a strong return to form,” while IGN’s review-in-progress found “a genuinely exciting string of missions” that work best when they lean into what’s new instead of trading on nostalgia.
Then there’s the core of it all — gunplay and movement, the fundamentals every Call of Duty lives or dies by — which reviewers widely describe as refined and best-in-class. The mission variety gets singled out again and again: a semi-open “Stranded” mission that weaves foraging, rebuilding outposts and crafting into the action without stalling the pace, a full-city car chase called Traffic, and a large combined-arms trench assault named Entrenched. Presentation earns steady praise as well, from exceptional sound design and strong voice acting to visuals one outlet described as the most stunning they had seen on Xbox Series X.
Multiplayer, meanwhile, is landing as a confident refinement rather than a reinvention — and after last year’s misfire, most critics reckon that’s exactly the right call. The old reliables like Team Deathmatch and Kill Confirmed are back alongside new modes such as Combat Outpost and Hijack, plus a Kill Block system that reshapes map layouts between rounds. Throw in the live DMZ extraction mode and Warzone support arriving in November, and you’re looking at one of the fullest packages the series has ever shipped. OpenCritic’s top-critics average sits at 84 out of 100 with 100% of critics recommending it. A clean sweep, in other words.
What Critics Don’t
Any honest roundup has to include the caveats, and MW4’s most familiar one is that it plays it safe. Several critics point out that Infinity Ward tightened the series’ fundamentals rather than chasing something new, and one asked whether the game could have been “a bit more bold and daring.” If you were hoping for a reinvention of the formula, this isn’t that game.
The sharpest complaints land on the stealth and melee sections, which feel inconsistent sitting next to the superb gunplay, and some outlets flagged AI and technical performance issues too. The story divides opinion as well — the dual-perspective structure is ambitious, but a few critics found parts of it uneven, and player choices don’t carry much real weight. And since most coverage so far has centered on the campaign, the verdict on long-term multiplayer balance is still taking shape.
Performance & Value
Now the question US players keep Googling: Modern Warfare 4 PS5 vs PC performance. On PS5 and Xbox Series X, the campaign delivers a polished, visually striking experience at high frame rates with fast loading; the campaign-only install runs about 107 GB on PS5. On PC, budget for 115–124 GB depending on your launcher and content packs, and a full install on Xbox Series X|S can reach up to 194 GB — so clear some space before launch day. PC players get the expected advantage in frame rate and settings control, but critics say the console versions are the ones to beat for stability right now.
The real surprise is the Switch 2 port. Handled by Digital Legends, it carries the entire package with crossplay and cross-progression: the campaign targets 30fps, multiplayer aims for 60fps. Nintendo Life gave it 9/10, calling it impressive and “the full-fat CoD experience” on handheld. Fuzzy presentation and fizzy hair aside, it’s a genuine portable Call of Duty — something Nintendo players haven’t had in over a decade.
As for value, the standard edition is $69.99 and the Vault Edition is $99.99, with both digital editions including campaign early access. The campaign alone runs 8–9 hours — a clear step up from the 5–6 hour campaigns of recent years — and that’s before you touch multiplayer, DMZ, Warzone, and the seasons of content to come. Even if you only dip into multiplayer a little, the price-per-hour math lands firmly in MW4’s favor.
How Long Is the Modern Warfare 4 Campaign?
It’s one of the most searched questions about the game, and the answer is good news for anyone burned by short Call of Duty stories. The campaign runs 16 missions, and a standard first playthrough on normal difficulty takes 8–9 hours. A fast run on the easiest difficulty can come in around 7 hours, while higher difficulties and a bit of exploring push well beyond that. Completionists going after all 18 achievements should expect 14–18 hours across multiple playthroughs.
The biggest wild card is mission 10, “Stranded” — a proper open-world sandbox where you can hammer through three objectives in under an hour, or spend a couple of hours hunting supply crates, collectibles and secrets. Every mission also unlocks a reward, from operators to double XP tokens you can take into multiplayer.
Is Modern Warfare 4 Worth It in 2026?
That’s the only question that really matters, so here’s the honest consensus. If you’re a Call of Duty fan who sat out last year, or a lapsed player burned by recent entries, critics say this is the year to come back: an 84 on Metacritic, an 84 top-critics average on OpenCritic with every critic recommending it, and 91% positive Steam user reviews — those numbers tell the story of a franchise that actually listened.
If multiplayer and Warzone are mainly what you buy Call of Duty for, the full package — 6v6 maps, Kill Block’s reshaping layouts, DMZ, and Warzone in November — makes this one of the meatiest launches in years. And if you’re on Switch 2 and have been locked out of the series for a decade, this is your way back in, and it’s a strong one.
For more on launch-day specifics, see our Modern Warfare 4 launch-day guide covering all the maps and modes, and we also covered its record-breaking debut at the top of Steam’s best-seller chart. And if you like a redemption story, this year’s Call of Duty echoes the comeback we chronicled in our Cyberpunk 2077 review.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long is the Modern Warfare 4 campaign?
Around 8–9 hours on normal difficulty across 16 missions — longer than the 5–6 hour campaigns of recent Call of Duty games. The open-world “Stranded” mission can add a couple of hours if you explore it fully.
Does Modern Warfare 4 have crossplay and cross-progression?
Yes. Crossplay and cross-progression are included across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2, so your unlocks and progress carry between platforms.
Is Modern Warfare 4 worth it in 2026?
For Call of Duty fans and lapsed players, the critic consensus says yes — an 84 Metacritic score, 100% critic recommendation rate, and an 8–9 hour campaign plus a packed multiplayer suite make it the strongest entry in years.
The Verdict
Modern Warfare 4 is the comeback Call of Duty needed. Infinity Ward didn’t reinvent the shooter — it remembered what made the series great and pulled it off with confidence: a genuinely exciting campaign, refined gunplay, a packed multiplayer suite, and even a respectable Switch 2 port. The stealth sections wobble and the story is uneven in places, but those read as footnotes on a package critics overwhelmingly recommend.
Consensus score: 8.4/10 — “Generally Favorable” on Metacritic (84), 84/100 top-critics average on OpenCritic with 100% recommending it. Score sources: Metacritic and OpenCritic. For the campaign breakdown behind our verdict, see this campaign-length guide.
