IGN, CNET, ComicBook.com and Yahoo Tech review Modern Warfare 4

IGN, CNET, ComicBook.com and Yahoo Tech published reviews of Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on Oct. 16, Oct. 23 and Oct. 27, 2026. cite_ids: [“IGN”, “CNET”, “ComicBook.com”, “Yahoo Tech”]

Yahoo Tech reported the game released on Oct. 23, 2026, published by Activision Blizzard and developed by Infinity Ward, with an expected price of $70 or £60. Yahoo Tech reported that Infinity Ward spent four years developing the title, a span tied with the series’ longest development time, and called it the next Call of Duty from the original creators.

ComicBook.com assigned the game a rating of 3 out of 5 on Oct. 27. IGN published its review on Oct. 16, CNET on Oct. 23, and Yahoo Tech on Oct. 27. Yahoo Tech described the result as Call of Duty in the pocket.

IGN reported the 16-mission campaign takes around seven hours to complete and said Captain Price is on the run as a lone wolf after Modern Warfare 3’s disastrous finale, with his story set over five days before the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Yahoo Tech said the campaign is six hours long and more than half centers on young South Korean marines. CNET said the campaign shifts between Captain John Price and South Korean soldier Park Hyun-Jun.

IGN reported Young Mazino plays Park Hyun Jun, providing an emotional anchor like Farah in the 2019 reboot, and said Mads Mikkelsen’s The Archer lacked enough screen time for a connection. ComicBook.com called the Archer’s backstory nearly nonexistent with an out-of-nowhere late-game twist and reported North Korea’s newly crowned Supreme Leader Ri Seung-Ho wants to move the country in a noble direction, but the game never explains why; his bloodthirsty sister gets no backstory.

ComicBook.com said the campaign inherits a complicated plot involving a Mexican cartel, rogue agents, Russian nationalists and an aggressive North Korean Army, and that its jingoistic qualities prevent examining why certain leaders seek destruction. CNET described a united coalition of Russian and North Korean ultranationalists and said Russia and North Korea are sneering colonialist powers while Western soldiers are a shield on every front. IGN reported an early level has Captain Price fistfighting through a New York nightclub, while another has players holding off paratroopers on the streets of Seoul with a mortar.

CNET reported the campaign’s worst mission involves being shot down over North Korean airspace and surviving behind enemy lines with scavenged gear, calling it a Warzone-like open-world mission with more than 50 optional collectibles; the reviewer completed around half before quitting because the puzzles were mind-numbingly easy. IGN said the campaign contains no genuine all-timer mission to rival All Ghillied Up or Clean House, and that unforgiving stealth segments and an imprecise counter-based melee system recur during key story moments. ComicBook.com said optional gear is only worth collecting for related trophies or achievements.

CNET reported Modern Warfare Zombies has been dropped in favor of DMZ, an accessible player-versus-player-versus-AI extraction shooter, called DMZ the standout mode, said Infinity Ward has been tinkering with it in the background and plans to add new world bosses, and noted DMZ returns with new content for the first time since its beta ended in 2023. ComicBook.com reported DMZ has scarce interactions with other players, a large uninteresting map and standard enemy units that do not create emergent moments.

Players drop into North Korea to loot, fight each other and take down key targets in DMZ, CNET reported, and the mode includes scrap types, healing items and tons of weapons with enemy AI that is aggressive and includes armored vehicles and helicopters. CNET called the player-versus-AI balance nailed and said the bounty system makes players who hunt others appear on the map, allowing pacifists to steer clear.

CNET reported Modern Warfare 4 removes Black Ops 7’s omnimovement system, which allowed running, jumping and sliding while looking in any direction, but still allows sprinting, sliding and dolphin diving, and that six-versus-six matches are slightly slower while larger modes are less chaotic. IGN reported multiplayer has a slower pace than Black Ops 6 or Black Ops 7 and involves more time to kill, with no tac sprint, omnimovement or wall-running.

IGN reported the game ships with a dozen launch maps including Mumbai, Cachette, Sentry and Coal, with Mumbai offering a three-lane structure and Cachette’s central courtyard a deathtrap surrounded by high windows; Sentry’s snow and Coal’s industrial brown factory elicited zero emotion. Kill Block, a new scenery-shifting military training facility, divides into three zones that randomize at the start of alternating Gunfight rounds and is initially the sole mode on the map as a 10v10 variant, with Team Deathmatch and Kill Confirmed planned later.

IGN reported Collateral is a plant and defuse mode like Search and Destroy, with buy stages like Counter-Strike or Valorant, often devolving into a 5v5 version of Gunfight where players ignore the bomb, and described Frontline as a Team Deathmatch variant that uses fixed spawn points and a short invincibility window. The outlet called Ground War a poor man’s Battlefield, a returning 24v24 mode featuring tanks, heavy vehicles and three capture points. It also reported significant spawning issues at launch, with players often dumped into corners far from teammates or into enemy lines of fire.

CNET reported many weapons have more than 70 attachments each. Yahoo Tech reported the attachment limit is five per gun and described apex attachments, unique add-ons that unlock after maxing out a gun or through a blueprint.

The review hardware was an RTX 5090, Ryzen 7 9800X3D 4.7 GHz and 64GB RAM. Multiplayer supports up to 60 players, and Steam Deck is unsupported.

ComicBook.com reported unlocks and hyperactive dopamine-fueled level-up screens drive competitive multiplayer, making earning gear feel like the actual game, and said earning the same scopes and suppressors year after year no longer feels enticing. A new diagram details damage taken and dealt against a killer, along with each shooter’s position. The outlet also reported generic AI-created artwork on framed pictures and posters, blaming annualization and $20 cosmetics.

ComicBook.com disclosed the publisher supplied a PS5 copy for review purposes and said the publisher faces a boycott and that its parent company is making the world worse, making Modern Warfare 4 more unappealing on top of its mediocre campaign, multiplayer and DMZ. The campaign features a closing remix of Wu-Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M. with Korean vocals.