Modern Warfare 3 Emphasizes Story, and Aims to do it Better than Battlefield

The first-person shooter genre has been filled to the brim with an array of titles this generation, many of which fight to differentiate themselves to stand out from the pack. The Call of Duty has been the best-selling in the genre, while offering little in the way of difference, but has routinely delivered a polished experience that leaves consumers satisfied. However, the series’ campaign modes have a history of not only being confusing, but redundant as well. With Modern Warfare 3 on the horizon, will it continue this disappointing trend? Its development team doesn’t think so.

Sledgehammer Games General Manager Glen Schofield had a lot to say during his latest interview with CVG, much of which shared his team’s desire to deliver a captivating single-player campaign. When speaking about what makes Modern Warfare 3‘s campaign better than previous releases, Schofield stated:

We spent a lot of time on it, there’s some great stuff in there, the character development, some great dialogue. That’s not innovative in itself but I think it’s new for the series.

He continued:

Basically, we sat down, talked to each other and one of the things we came out and said was: ‘We want to tell a story. We want to tell a good story, we don’t want it to be confusing, I want to know who I’m playing.

Schofield shared some interesting thoughts on how the Call of Duty has compared to others on the market, namely EA’s rivaling Battlefield series. He thinks consumers prefer the Call of Duty campaigns, and said the following:

I don’t know if we have scientific data, but I know that people have talked to me about it and have said it’s pretty 50/50. One of the big differences is that we had numbers at EA… like 50 percent of the people that played a game, you know, went to level three, but finishing the game, like ten percent. One of the things I heard with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is that when people start playing single-player they’ll finish it. I think this is sort of a testament to the good ramp in gameplay and the excitement of continuing.

Not many people purchase these games for the single-player experience, but the additional content is always welcomed. This year, Battlefield 3 will even treat players with the option to play through the entire campaign with a friend, making what could be a memorable experience even better. Surprisingly, Call of Duty won’t follow suit, and instead will return to the Spec Ops content we saw in Modern Warfare 2. Nonetheless, both development teams have been pouring resources into making their story as powerful as possible, and even though many buyers won’t start up the campaign, what is there has taken lots of effort to engineer.

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