Judging by first looks alone, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is already shaping up to be a much bigger campaign than the last few Modern Warfare games, with Infinity Ward plunging players into a full-scale invasion of South Korea and a wide variety of missions, from large-scale warfare and high-speed car chases to more personal, close-quarters encounters. It already sounds like the studio is trying to make Modern Warfare 4 feel bigger, broader, and more varied than what the series has seen in years, but there may be more going on beneath the surface than scale alone.
During a recent Modern Warfare 4 reveal event at Infinity Ward in Los Angeles, I had the chance to sit down with associate design director Alex Norris and narrative director Jeff Negus to talk specifically about the game’s campaign. During the interview, Norris and Negus discussed its Korean Peninsula setting, Private Park’s zero-to-hero journey, Captain Price’s unusual place in the story, and the team’s focus on giving each mission its own identity. However, when I asked what player agency looks like in Modern Warfare 4, the conversation became much more interesting, as it was clear the team was holding back from saying too much.
Infinity Ward Is Teasing a Different Kind of Freedom in Modern Warfare 4
Regardless of what game I’m playing, I care a great deal about player agency. Sure, I enjoy linear stories—so long as they’re compelling enough to sustain my interest—but when I’m able to manipulate a narrative, or at least break away from its current for a while to do my own thing, I feel like I have more personal stake in what’s happening. That, in and of itself, makes me feel like I have a reason to stick around, if not just to see how my choices affect the gameplay and story long term.
But player agency has never been one of Call of Duty‘s most consistent campaign traits, especially in Modern Warfare. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story of the last three Modern Warfare games, and I have little doubt that this one will be just as entertaining. Even so, I wouldn’t mind a bit more freedom to choose where my next foot lands, or even the next story beat. I don’t need Modern Warfare to become an open-world RPG to give me more agency. Rather, it could be something as simple as giving me more room to choose my approach, explore an open space, or make a decision that slightly changes how a mission plays out.
Well, Infinity Ward is apparently taking that into consideration with Modern Warfare 4, as Norris said he was “biting his tongue” when I asked about what player agency would look like in this entry. He certainly didn’t refrain from spilling at least a few details about what players can expect in that regard, but he was clearly holding something major back:
I don’t want to spoil certain things, so I’m trying not to get after it in certain answers. It’s one of those things that we’re always hounding each other on. What do I get to do? I don’t want the game telling me something tasky that I have to do. I want to have an experience that’s like, “This is so fantastic, I can’t believe I’m getting to do this, I’m getting to go through this.” And then that varies. You could have a rail-ride mission where the player agency is a bit limited, but then you could have more of a large-scale, open mission where the player gets to do so many things at their own pace, at their own rhythm, and really tap into that agency aspect. I’m so biting my tongue. There is stuff that’s just not ready to talk about.
That’s interesting because Norris wasn’t describing player agency in Modern Warfare 4 as one single thing. He openly acknowledged that some missions will still be more directed, which is exactly what most players would expect from a Call of Duty campaign, but he also pointed to larger, more open missions where players can move at their own pace and rhythm.
Of course, pacing is something that needs to be heavily considered in an FPS campaign like Modern Warfare 4, because too much freedom can distract from the story and even cause players to forget what happened. Sometimes, that amount of freedom can pass, but only if the narrative is more of a backdrop than the core focus. In a game like Crimson Desert, for example, players can spend hundreds of hours in the game without ever touching the story, but that’s actually the whole point. In a Modern Warfare campaign, though, the point is the story, and Negus actually had something to say about that:
It’s interesting when we think about agency and what it means to pacing, because we’re always up against this, where it’s like, yeah, we want to give everybody all the choices. And it feels great because you get to make the choice. But then are you just like, “Boy, this is taking a lot of time. This is taking forever.”
So, Negus acknowledged the pacing issues that too much player agency can create, but my eyebrows definitely went up when he said, “We want to give everybody all the choices.” Now, choices have been present in Call of Duty before—Black Ops 2 and Black Ops Cold War being just a couple of examples—but the concept has largely been left out of Modern Warfare. It’s also the fact that Negus confirmed the studio wants to give players a lot of choices that has my interest piqued, even if the end result is that they can’t dole out as many choices as they would like to.
Players Will Have a Lot of Choices in Modern Warfare 4
Maybe it sounds like Negus was hinting that a noticeable degree of player agency isn’t possible in an FPS campaign where the pacing needs to be kept in check, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. More than anything, it seems like he was talking about the balance between bringing players along for the ride and letting them be the one in the driver’s seat. Plus, after Norris’ comment that he was biting his tongue on a big twist and then another comment from him that followed, it’s essentially confirmed that players will, in fact, have a lot of choices to make in Modern Warfare 4:
I don’t think I could spoil anything by saying this, but there is a mission where the player has a lot of choices. Jeff was at the stage very late last night capturing hundreds of shots and different takes to accompany that mission where the player has a lot of choices. There are different outcomes and certain things like that, for certain missions.
To be clear, “hundreds of shots and different takes” doesn’t automatically mean there are hundreds of different ways a mission could play out. Most likely, it means Infinity Ward needed to account for a wider range of player actions, angles, routes, and outcomes than it normally would in a more straightforward mission. Even then, that’s still a big deal for Modern Warfare 4, because it suggests this campaign’s variety may extend beyond simply moving players from one type of set piece to another. If certain missions are being built with enough flexibility that the team needs to prepare different takes and outcomes around player choice, then agency may be one of the quietest but most meaningful ways Modern Warfare 4 is trying to separate itself from what came before.
Negus had one final comment on player agency in Modern Warfare 4 that wraps up the game’s philosophy on it in a neat bow. Based on what he said, agency in this campaign doesn’t sound like it’s only about giving players a bigger space to move through or a longer list of options to choose from. Rather, it’s about making those choices feel tied to the character, the mission, and the situation players have been placed in. As he explained:
It’s also hinting on what do you get to do or what do you want to do. What can you do is an interesting question, but what do you want to do because of how it’s contextualized becomes really interesting given some of the scenarios this game has. In some of the situations Alex is talking about, it’s who you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re trying to do that makes those choices, makes that agency so meaningful. And I think this game has more of that, knowing that we’ve had several versions of that in previous games, we really get to push into new territory with this game in that regard.
If Infinity Ward is holding back as much as it seems to be, then Modern Warfare 4‘s biggest campaign twist may come from how much room players are given inside its larger missions. The series will almost certainly still rely on cinematic pacing, scripted intensity, and carefully directed set pieces, as it should. But if Modern Warfare 4 gives players more chances to choose an approach, affect certain outcomes, or feel like their actions belong to the character they are playing, its campaign could feel different in a way that potentially elevates it above its predecessors. Infinity Ward is clearly not ready to say everything yet, but it has already said enough to make player agency one of the most interesting parts of the game to watch.
- Released
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October 23, 2026
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
