Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is a live service, triple-A, realistically-themed, near future, first person shooter with primarily cosmetic microtransactions. It is the twentieth installment in the Call of Duty series and a direct sequel and expansion to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. It was published by Activision, and primarily developed by Sledgehammer Games, with support from studios Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Raven Software, Beenox, Demonware, High Moon Studios, and Toys for Bob. It was developed for Playstations 4 and 5, XBox One and XBox Series X/S, and Windows. While this particular installment of Call of Duty appeals especially well to players who love customizing their weapons and equipment, in general, the Call of Duty franchise is designed to broadly appeal to anyone interested in first person shooters. It casts its net wide by having beginner friendly controls, relatively strong aim assist, and a relatively quick time-to-kill (200-300ms), which makes it easier for lower skilled players to defeat higher skilled players by catching them off-guard. It also has a strong skill-based matchmaking system that keeps players from having to face players much better than them. It also incorporates mechanics that appeal to the “achievers” and “explorers” of Bartle’s taxonomy of players, such as extensive progression systems and endless combinations of customization options. These elements not only draw in a wide audience, but they also keep players hooked; through the use of a FOMO-inducing live-service model, endlessly refreshing progression system, and highly volatile skill-based matchmaking system, the game calculatedly promises rewards at regular intervals to keep players coming back.
The live service-model promises new, limited-time content at regular intervals called “seasons”, both in the form of cosmetics, progression, and gameplay changes. These promised rewards give players a time sensitive reason to continue engaging with the game every few weeks. Each season contains a non-linear battle pass with limited time rewards, which creates an artificial urgency. The battle pass’s non linearity also makes rewards seem more feasible to achieve; nothing is too far from where you start, so any one reward is close by, but to get everything requires significant time commitment. This is also a form of comparison prevention, because the amount of time it takes to unlock something isn’t fixed, making it hard to decide whether one should buy it outright, or grind to unlock it. Furthermore, the battle pass has two premium tiers, each with bonus content and faster progression, meaning that, unless the player forks over $30 every season, there’s always something giving them FOMO. This is only exaggerated by the fact that the battle pass progress map appears at the end of every match, which serves as a form of nagging – constantly reminding the player of what they could buy.
[a picture of the game’s non-linear battle pass. Note the fifth, largest unlock on the bottom of the screen, only available for people who pay for the premium tier]
[promotional material for the first official season of the game. note that some items, such as one of the maps, is marked for an in-season release, further spreading out the release of content]
[some weapons randomly have bonus EXP tied to them, another form of creating limited time pressure through randomness]
The in-game story is also tied to the season system, with each season revealing new, limited time cosmetic bundles. Bundles cycle through the store randomly, sometimes disappearing, never to return. This creates both artificial scarcity and urgency, as players don’t know when an item they’re interested in will be randomly refreshed. Secondly, bundles in the store often cost an “odd” amount of COD Points. Most bundles cost 800, 1200, or 1800 points, but points can only be purchased in multiples of 500, causing players to feel like they always have leftover currency that goes to waste… unless they buy another bundle.
The progression system is integrated into every single element of the game, from player level, to weapon level, to optional challenges, promising players that there’s always something new to unlock. Some of these challenges also pose entirely unrealistic goals which demand excessive playtime from the player; the max player level is 1250, and every weapon has a cosmetic camo unlock that takes upwards of 1,000,000 EXP to unlock. FaZe Jev, a popular Call of Duty streamer, has criticized this EXP grind, stating that “I feel like 1.2 million XP, although it’s possible, JGOD [another youtuber] said that if you played up to an hour a day and you were top fragging, you realistically would be able to get it, but again that’s playing every single day and then consistently doing well for at least an hour”. There are also random daily and weekly challenges, tempting players to check back regularly to see if there’s an easily achievable reward. The daily challenges can’t be seen in advance and are random, so players won’t know if they’re missing out on something unless they check every day. Another example of the near-infinite milestone chasing is the ranked play mode. The ranked play mode offers both prestige in the form of rank (which appeals to the achievers), and in the form of an unlockable cosmetic camo.
[random daily challenges, varying wildly in difficulty. Note that one of them requires the player to get 35 kills, while the other requires the player to die 3 times, varying greatly in difficulty]
The skill-based matchmaking system is a more insidious and invisible design pattern that keeps players hooked with constantly fluctuating highs and lows, offering easy wins when the player is on a losing streak, and forcing losses when the player is on a winning streak. Call of Duty is intentionally very tight-lipped about their matchmaking system by keeping player skill ratings completely hidden and revealing little about how the system works. Because of EU consumer protection laws, however, youtuber ExclusiveAce has managed to collect player-submitted personal data, which includes an enigmatic skill rating history. In several videos on the subject, he’s noticed a trend in both the data collected, controlled experiments, and user experience: the matchmaking system is less about the player’s lifetime skill, but about the player’s recent performance (last 5-10 games, i.e. 1-2 hours). In his words, ““It felt like the system was determining my highs and lows throughout a gaming session to try to target the perfect level of engagement. So, it’d purposely give me some hard matches and make me lose for a few games, but then it would adjust and give me a few wins, and that’s designed to keep you hooked, kind of like a slot machine does, where it’s trying to optimize and make sure that it’s extracting as much money as possible from you, while ensuring that it gives you just enough to keep you sticking around”. Without ever telling the player their skill rating, the game will continually disband lobbies after each match to put players in handpicked lobbies. In the words of many players on reddit, it feels like the game decides whether you win or lose, not your own skill.
Altogether, the progression system promises that there is always something to do, the live-service system makes it so there’s always a limited time to do it, and the skill-based matchmaking system makes sure it’s never too far out of reach. This model is closely tied with the monetization system, which enables players to purchase weapons before having unlocked them. Despite its flaws, however, the game offers a path forward for developers. The armory unlock system allows players to earn “armory tokens” for completing daily challenges. Although it’s a grind itself, it allows players to have more agency in what they unlock and in what order. One player on reddit says “ maybe you want to use the no stock on the striker, which is essentially the last unlock for that gun but by using the armory you can get it with just two wins. So while the Armory does seem like a bs mechanic, it’s actually quite useful when used properly.” This indicates the armory system does provide players some agency over how they engage with the game, reducing the overall grind. Another player disagrees, pointing out how some items can only be unlocked with armory items, calling it an “Absolutely unnecessary system that feels like it was added simply to pad out and stretch player engagement.” Another big positive about the armory system is that it isn’t full of randomness: while other games have the player unlock items through randomized loot crates, the player always knows what’s ahead of them, and thus can control their fate. Keeping chance out of in-game purchases and out of progression avoids deceiving players into spending time and money for nothing. Though Call of Duty does a lot to induce FOMO and keep the breadcrumb trail endless, systems like the armory system provide a path forward by providing players with more control over what direction they progress in.
[not every weapon can be unlocked with armory tokens; some have to be grinded for no matter what]
