Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 3™

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (stylized as CALL OF DUTY: MW3, and also known as COD: MW3, or MW3) is the sequel to Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Activision confirmed the title was in pre-production on April 9, 2011 and was released on November 8, 2011. Sledgehammer Games, originally planning to work on the canceled action/adventure Call of Duty, worked with Infinity Ward to complete all aspects of MW3. Raven Software is assisting with the user interface and DLC, as they have with previous Call of Duty games. The DLC will be released once a month over a period of 9 months. It will be free to users of Call of Duty Elite if they have the Premium version of the service. Sledgehammer was aiming for a bug-free Call of Duty title and ratings above 95%.

Modern Warfare 3 uses an upgraded Modern Warfare 2 engine, dubbed the "MW3 engine" instead of "IW 5.0" out of courtesy for Sledgehammer Games.

When a massive amount of leaked information was revealed by gaming news site Kotaku on May 13, 2011, Robert Bowling responded in a tweet stating: "A lot of hype & a lot of leaked info on #MW3, some still accurate, some not. To avoid spoiling the experience, I'd wait for the real reveal. Later that day, four teaser trailers for Modern Warfare 3 were released on Call of Duty's official YouTube channel. Each one revealed a different location: New York, London, Paris, and Berlin.

The full reveal trailer was released on May 23, 2011. The trailer was leaked almost two hours before the scheduled air time, prompting Activision to officially release the reveal trailer earlier than planned. The reveal featured sequences from combat in all four of the previously confirmed locations.

The single player trailer, Redemption, was released on October 7, 2011, revealing bits of the story of the campaign, including the return of Captain Price as he continues his hunt for Makarov.

The Launch Trailer was released on the 21st, labeling "the next chapter in the worldwide phenomenon" as "the most anticipated game in history." 

Plot

Hours after killing General Shepherd, Captain John Price and Nikolai evacuate a dying John "Soap" MacTavish to a safehouse run by Nikolai’s allies in Himachal Pradesh, India. While Soap receives medical attention, a large group of men under Vladimir Makarov's command, storm the safehouse in attempt to kill the three. An soldier Yuri, aids Price in giving Soap medical attention, securing a safe route to the extraction point out of the country.

The Russian invasion of the United States continues, culminating the Battle of Lower Manhattan. A Delta Force team call-sign “Metal” under the command of Sandman is deployed in New York City to repel the Russian assault along the East River. Team Metal succeeds in destroying a jamming device mounted on the rooftop of the New York Stock Exchange building and escapes on a Black Hawk helicopter and later assists the U.S. Navy SEALs in boarding a Russian Oscar II to use its ordnance against the Russian Navy. As a result of Team Metal's actions, the Russians withdraw from the East Coast, and presumably, the US as a whole.

Two months later, Russian President Vorshevsky announces plans to make peace with the United States at a summit in Hamburg, Germany. During the announcement, men loyal to Makarov sabotage the plane. Agents from the Federal Protective Service are able to escort Alena Vorshevsky, Vorshevsky's daughter out of danger, but Vorshevsky himself is kidnapped.

With Soap largely recovered from his injuries, Yuri gives Price intelligence about an arms deals involving Makarov in Sierra Leone. Task Force 141 - now consisting of only Price, Soap, and Yuri - head to one of the storehouses only to find the contents of the warehouse empty. The three push their way into a church situated in the center of town, but are too late in retrieving the cargo. Coming across a shipping manifest, Price learns that there are three packages that contain chemical weapons being distributed across Europe, meant to be used for assaulting Paris, Berlin, and London. Price covertly informs his former mentor, Captain MacMillan, of his findings and asks for intelligence as a favor for Pripyat; this leads them to a local warlord in Somalia.

Meanwhile, a British SAS team led by Sergeant Wallcroft is deployed to prevent the use of one of the chemical weapons payloads in London. They secure the dockyards and pursue the terrorists through the underground metro system. The SAS team destroys a truck suspected to carry the chemical weapons, only to discover it is a decoy. The actual truck carrying the bomb detonates elsewhere in London. Dozens of other chemical attacks are revealed to have been successfully conducted in major cities throughout western Europe. In Hamburg, Team Metal is deployed to rescue the Vice President of the United States, being aided by M1 Abrams tanks in the area, after the Russian military launches a land invasion of Germany immediately following the chemical attacks.

Task Force 141, and Nikolai’s men assault the warlord’s village in Somalia, where they learn from the warlord that he made a physical transaction with a bomb-maker named Volk in Paris. Operating on the intelligence acquired by Price, Team Metal executes a joint operation with the French GIGN to capture Volk. Team Metal is successful in the operation, albeit at the cost of the Eiffel Tower’s destruction. Volk gives up information about a meeting held by Makarov in Prague.

With the aid of Kamarov, Price, Soap, and Yuri infiltrate the city with the intention of assassinating Makarov. Price takes a position in the Hotel Lustig, while Soap and Yuri provide cover from a nearby church. However, the assassination attempt goes awry when Makarov takes Kamarov hostage, revealing that he is aware of Yuri’s alliance with Price and Soap. The church is rigged with explosives and detonated, sending Yuri and Soap falling to the ground, while Price barely evades a bomb-laden Kamarov. Yuri survives, but Soap is wounded. The three take refuge in a nearby resistance safehouse, where Soap succumbs to his wounds after telling Price about Makarov’s knowledge of Yuri. Enraged, Price punches Yuri down a flight of stairs and threatens to execute him. Through flashbacks, Yuri describes his role with the Russian Ultranationalists, having been present at Price’s attempted assassination mission of Zakhaev, the nuclear detonation in the Middle East, and the airport massacre in Moscow. Yuri attempted to prevent the massacre, but was wounded by Makarov before it happened. Price decides to keep the alliance with Yuri, and the two follow up a lead on Makarov’s suspected fortress. Price and Yuri infiltrate the fortress and learn of President Vorshevsky’s captivity, as well as recent intelligence that the President’s daughter is in Berlin. Price and Yuri destroy the base and relay the intelligence to Team Metal. Team Metal acts on Price’s findings and attempts to reach the safehouse where Vorshevsky's daughter has taken refuge, but they are too late to prevent her capture.

A joint rescue operation composed of Task Force 141 and Team Metal - with the exception of Sergeant Derek “Frost” Westbrook - is carried out in a diamond mine in Siberia. The team is successful in saving both of the Vorshevskys, but Sandman, along with other members of Team Metal are killed as the mine collapses during their extraction. The rescue mission brings about the end of the conflict between the United States and Russia.

With the war over, Price and Yuri track Makarov to the Hotel Oasis in the Arabian Peninsula. The pair wear Juggernaut armor and are virtually unstoppable until they are attacked by a helicopter inside of an elevator. Their armor catches fire, and they are forced to shed it. The floor collapses, and Price narrowly escapes falling to his death. After clambering up, he sees that Yuri has been impaled on a metal rod, and tells Price to go on. Makarov attempts to escape via helicopter, but Price manages to sabotage it. Rounding on Price, Makarov prepares to execute him, only to be interrupted by Yuri. Makarov kills his former ally, giving Price enough time to strangle Makarov with a loose cable and breaking the hotel's glass roof for him to hang freely. Price survives the fall and lights a cigar while watching Makarov’s hanging corpse. 

Multiplayer

The Multiplayer was revealed to the general public during the Call of Duty XP Event on September 2 and 3, 2011. Attendees were able to experience multiplayer gameplay two months before the game's release.

The core multiplayer gameplay has been likened to a spiritual combination of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 but with several major additions:

• Each Prestige now has 80 levels.
• New, changed and removed perks, as well as the re-inclusion of Overkill.
• Weapon Proficiencies allow for further class and weapon customization.
• Each weapon now has its own individual rank (known as Weapon Level) and in order to level up the weapon a player needs to use it to unlock its attachments, proficiencies and challenges.
• The old killstreak system has replaced with the Strike Chain, with 3 different Strike Packages for pointstreaks to choose from: Assault, Support, and Specialist.
• Two new gametypes called Kill Confirmed and Team Defender.
• Players have the ability to scroll pointstreak rewards.
• Players have the ability to set a separate pointstreak progression for each custom class.
• There is now a visible pointstreak counter included in the HUD.
• Players' pointstreaks restart after their last pointstreak reward is reached, without needing to die to restart their streak.
• Private matches now have a variety of pre-set custom gamemodes.
• There are 16 multiplayer maps on the disc, and each one of them is also playable in Survival Mode. However, the maps differ in difficulty.
• Online Split-Screen is back.
• Theater Mode has also been included.
• There are more options for disabled players and/or those who are handicapped.
• You need to level up separately once again in Offline Split-Screen, unlike in Black Ops, where everything is unlocked. 

 "Like it ended for Captain MacTavish? Tell me, Price: how long did it take him to die? I've destroyed your world piece by piece. It's only a matter of time until I find you."-Vladimir R. Makarov  

(Relase Date: November 8, 2011)