Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reveal: Old name, new campaign, new brutality

A familiar face, but Captain John Price returns to Call of Duty in an entirely new timeline and plot. [credit: Infinity Ward / Activision ]

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif.—The rumors are all true. The next AAA military shooter from Activision and Infinity Ward, coming to PCs and consoles on October 25, will be titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Don't let the name fool you: some of its content is decidedly unfamiliar.

Despite reusing the old series name without a number attached, this game is neither a remake nor a remaster. CoD:MW hits reset on the series' timeline. Infinity Ward has rewound a few of its familiar characters and concepts, then placed them in an entirely new, "current-day" storyline. The development team is doing this in part to usher in a first for the series: an entire half of the campaign played from the perspective of an Arab soldier.

This woman character, hailing from an unnamed Middle Eastern country, was introduced to a select group of journalists earlier this month at Infinity Ward's Los Angeles-area headquarters, and her military allegiance was left unclear. At this "pre-E3" event, we watched "real-time gameplay" from two missions, and both emphasized a level of realistic rendering and brutality comparable to the visceral Last of Us series.

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