The unsung hero of Modern Warfare III — Sledgehammer and co. are nailing live service

The moment Call of Duty truly became a live service game was during Modern Warfare 2019. We saw the battle pass model adopted, along with free content updates on a seasonal level. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. There’s been something missing however, and each title since has only felt like it got incrementally closer. With Modern Warfare III’s release, however, we’re barely a season in and I feel like Sledgehammer and company have perfected what the reboot set out to accomplish.

A live service game is generally a video game you’re playing weekly, if not daily. Building one isn’t easy either; we’ve watched in 2023 as multiple titles have closed shop due to losing players interest. Call of Duty has had a bit of an easy entry here; it’s perennially the best selling game each year, so that helps. That said, we have seen the title hemorrhaging players due to odd choices, like the return to World War II or slowing player pace while lowering time to kill to egregious levels.

To be consistent, you need two things: an engaged player base and regular content drops. You can’t really have one without the other; if you have no player base, all the content means nothing. If you have a lot of players but never give them something to engage with, they’ll fall off and move to a game that will support them. That’s a very simple way of looking at it, especially as you have to have a good game in the first place, but those two pillars are necessary for your live service to live. Thankfully for Call of Duty, they have a phenomenal gameplay loop, so you have a foundation to build off of.

The best example of doing live service right is none other than Fortnite. Give that game all the crap you want, but they know how to keep a player base happy. Epic Games has somehow turned the battle pass into an event, with crossovers galore. Beyond that, there’s a bit of a vague narrative behind why things have changed with the map, along with humongous new chapters which bring in what’s new. Besides this, there’s something on the docket to do every week; which is why that community goes back again and again, investing their v-bucks into each new drop. Fortnite is certainly much more than one game at this point, and is evolving into more of a platform like Roblox, but you see what I’m getting at- it makes money and retains players.

In the past four years of Call of Duty (spanning five games), we’ve only seen new and occasional tactics as opposed to a full-fledged live service armada. Some of that is because they had a lot of video game to integrate. While Modern Warfare 2019 started its live service journey as multiplayer (Spec Ops doesn’t really count here), Warzone hitting the scene changed everything. Treyarch was rushed into Black Ops Cold War, which was an admirable effort given the huge amount of new content across multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone. With Vanguard’s arrival, everything felt a bit stale, mainly due to a game that was pressed upon Sledgehammer, but Raven did their best with the Warzone integration; something that overall just didn’t land as well with three games of weapons to balance, a ton of attachments, and a map in Caldera that didn’t fit.

To the credit of Treyarch, we did see a new idea slip in during Black Ops Cold War: Reloaded. This is a division of seasonal content, which filled in the two and a half month gap between seasons and allowed for certain content to get more time in the limelight along with a tad extra development. It improved on the issue at hand, more content for filling out the season, but also detracted from the beginning of seasons that were more lackluster.

Then, we arrive in the Modern Warfare II era. Infinity Ward wanted their interpretation of Call of Duty, slowing everything down except time to kill. Here, we saw massive sales but a loss of the community; one of those important pillars to a live service. Everywhere in between we saw some life in the live service – Krampus was a horrible addition to Caldera and Vanguard, but in theory something that engages players – but it seemed like the dev teams were missing the mark somewhere.

Now we sit at Modern Warfare III, and even though Sledgehammer was rushed into this, going more expansion than full release has somewhat worked in the games favor. We haven’t been able to stick with a title… ever. Sure, Modern Warfare III is a major overhaul in mechanics and systems, but the reuse of assets has seemingly allowed a live service to blossom.

One of the first ways I noticed this was with the Call of Duty Endowment event. It wasn’t a lot, just twelve items. These were all themed for the Endowment, with calling cards, emblems, some XP tokens, but ultimately culminating in a special camo. You could also purchase the C.O.D.E. pack and use the skin to get bonus XP towards the event, which is a smart way to grab a few extra bucks along with supporting a fantastic cause.

After that event ended a week later, we were met with another event, this time a Makarov one, which then dead-ended into a Task Force 141 event, which went into a Dune crossover. This was only the start, as Santa’s Slay Ride introduced not only a new camo to earn, but a plethora of new ways to play. People forget, it’s not just about the cosmetics, but also engaging players with new gameplay content.

These came in the form of a Zombie Santa on the Warzone train and a Snowball Fight game mode for 6v6. Snowfight was especially fun, working similarly to Gunfight as a limited-lives mode complete with picking up and throwing snowballs at each other. It also took place on cool themed maps, with Shipment becoming Shipmas (although we’ve seen similar in Vanguard, just not this neat), and Highrise becoming Hangover (again with a Christmas party and snow-covered aesthetic).

Now, we’re in an event called Vortex. Again, nothing too crazy, just a free-for-all mode where players duke it out over being able to use the Ray Gun from Zombies. But, they have it running on some of the most awesome variants of maps you can imagine, going full Dark Aether from Zombies. This, along with some cool rewards including a fantastic camo, make this event well worth grinding. This is how you keep players playing, by introducing variation into what they’re already doing. We didn’t need some insane overhaul, just a changing up of the formula.

Maybe that’s the point. While I’ve had a ton of fun playing Call of Duty intensely over the past few years, it’s been largely the same. Get new maps and guns, wait a few months for more. Not to mention, the breaks in between content have been a slog at times. While that kind of gap might still arrive in Modern Warfare III, I’ve seen a lot more mitigation through these limited time events. I’m even less annoyed by the SBMM as a part of it, although that still needs to continue to be toned down. It’s silly to imagine each one of these will always land – one of my buddies hated Snowfight – but it keeps us coming back.

Reloaded is around the corner, with a new map, new guns, and Ranked Play dropping in. I’d assume we’ll have an event themed around all of this. Sledgehammer’s creativity is really shining through during Modern Warfare III, and I think that needs to be encouraged as much as possible. Variety is the spice of life, and we’re seeing that in Call of Duty, and I want more of it.