The Modern Warfare 2 campaign transforms the latest Activision and Infinity Ward FPS game into something like Dark Souls, Elden Ring, or Bloodborne, as Call of Duty becomes brutally hard, and CoD Reddit charts hundreds of deaths.
Call of Duty has always had its tough missions, from the ferris wheel defence in CoD 4’s “One Shot, One Kill”, going right back to Pavlov’s house in the very first WW2 outing. But Modern Warfare 2, the campaign for which unlocks a week early for players with pre-orders, is proving perhaps tougher than any Call of Duty single-player mode ever. Slower, more serious, and with a smaller number of enemies, Modern Warfare 2 wants you to think carefully and tactically – just like Dark Souls, or any of the Soulsborne RPG games, it’s about quality rather than quantity of bad guys, and a single wrong move can get you killed.
“Holy f*** it was hard,” says one CoD player, who has finished the Modern Warfare 2 campaign. “There was one mission in particular that hurt my soul.” “The game’s significantly harder than the previous [Modern Warfare] on every difficulty, not just Veteran,” writes another Redditor, with a third claiming “the game [Modern Warfare 2] is way harder than MW 2019.”
Though Call of Duty players relish a challenge, including finishing Modern Warfare 2 on the unlockable “Realism” setting, some members of the FPS series’ community say the game’s difficulty impacts the experience. “I played every single CoD campaign on Veteran difficulty…and this one is easily the hardest, and the worst,” writes one player. “I loved the campaign, but Veteran is f***** up. It’s all over the place. Armoured enemies everywhere, surrounding you, throwing grenades everywhere. Your team on the other hand is the dumbest AI ever.”
“I’m not a fan of having to die multiple times each checkpoint,” says another CoD fan. “In the last game it was totally possible to make it through a few checkpoints without dying. It kind of feels like a completely different game in a way I’m not sure I like.” Another player points to Modern Warfare 2’s punishingly capable enemies as the source of their pain, saying “the aimbot they gave AI is insane. They turn on you so fast, and two shots, you’re dead.” One Redditor says they had to die 107 times before finishing the campaign on Veteran.
But if you’re feeling up to the challenge, check out our overview on all the Modern Warfare 2 missions. You might also need to know the best Modern Warfare 2 guns, or give yourself something to aim for with the Modern Warfare 2 campaign rewards, since even the most determined operators need motivation.