Summary
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's campaign is a step back from previous entries, lacking excitement and originality, including its underwhelming ending.
- The ending of Modern Warfare 3 features the death of Soap, which feels rushed and wasted considering his limited screen time and potential as a character.
- The post-credits scene of Modern Warfare 3 sees Captain Price executing General Shepherd, expressing his anger and unwillingness to beg for mercy.
Call of Duty campaigns tend to place a lot of stock in their ending. While the whole campaign is incredibly important, it's usually a Call of Duty's ending that can make or break the entire experience, either being the perfect final action set piece to a rollercoaster of a high-octane campaign or being a lackluster mess that ends up letting down everything that came before it. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's ending kind of sits somewhere in the middle.
It seems fair to say that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's campaign is a definite step back from the last two Modern Warfare entries, and arguably, it's also a major step back from even the original Modern Warfare series. Along with pacing issues and a lack of exciting big-spectacle moments, Modern Warfare 3's campaign is also fairly generic and unoriginal, borrowing a lot from past entries and paling in comparison in the process. That's especially true for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's ending, which reuses an old 2011 plot point, but fumbles the bag quite a bit.
What Happens in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Ending
Taking a good few cues from the original Modern Warfare trilogy, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sees Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov break out of prison and wreak havoc on the world in an attempt to incite a war between the US and Russia. But Task Force 141 is there to stop him at every turn. After unleashing some chemical weapons on his own people, and downing a plane filled with Russian citizens, the world is ready to go to war, and time is running out, but Captain Price and the rest of his crew manage to track Makarov down to his underground London base.
Planning to destroy the Channel Tunnel and trap thousands of people underground, Makarov sets bombs throughout the tunnel, and Captain Price and Soap rush to defuse them. While defusing a bomb, the duo is ambushed and Soap is shot and killed by Makarov. Ghost and Gaz suddenly appear and the bomb is successfully defused, but Makarov escapes and the team is left by themselves in the tunnel, looking solemnly at Soap's body.
The final cutscene of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's campaign sees Kate Laswell typing up a confidential report on the game's final mission, confirming that Soap has been killed in action. The scene then cuts to Price, Ghost, and Gaz on a cliffside, where they say a few words about their former brother-in-arms before spreading his ashes.
Soap's death in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 does feel a bit rushed and unoriginal. Fans were only introduced to this version of Soap in last year's Modern Warfare 2, and he's not given much screen time in Modern Warfare 3, and now he's gone for good, making his death feel like wasted potential.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Post-Credits Scene Explained
While Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's campaign technically ends with the remainder of Task Force 141 walking somberly into the sunset, the game's post-credits scene features a very different ending. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's post-credits scene sees Captain Price confront General Shepherd in his private office. Clearly still livid with the general for betraying his entire squad in the last game, Captain Price pulls a gun on Shepherd. After saying that we won't beg for his life, Price executes Shepherd right there on the spot, saying that it "Wouldn't do you any good."
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 58 /100 Critics Rec: 14%
- Released
- November 10, 2023
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Sledgehammer Games
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
- Engine
- iw 9.0
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
WHERE TO PLAY
- Franchise
- Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
- Genre(s)
- First-Person Shooter
