How long is the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Campaign?

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3’s campaign is finally out for players to potentially enjoy. If you want to know how long the MW3 campaign is, you’re in the right place.

MW3 Campaign length, explained

The Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 campaign will not take players that long at all to breeze through without a problem. It is one of the shortest campaigns in the entire history of the series, clocking in at just under four hours for me to complete on my own. I was able to blast through all of the story missions in a single night on the first day it came out. I imagine the campaign will range from 3-5 hours for most people.

This is despite the fact there are a whopping 15 main missions in the campaign, which sounds similar to past games based on numbers alone. However, these missions can take upwards of 10-20 minutes to finish, with a couple of them reaching closer to 30 minutes. This is due to their Warzone-like open world objectives, which can be completed quite quickly.

To be clear, I played the game on Regular difficulty, which is the default option you have. If you play it on the easier difficulty of Recruit, you’ll probably finish the game even faster. But those who try to beat the game on the higher difficulty settings like the classic Veteran might be able to squeeze an hour or so more out of the game.

How does MW3 compare to other titles?

For reference, you might be wondering how this extraordinarily short MW3 campaign compares to other titles in the series. It is by far the shortest in the series by a long shot. Well, if you ignore Black Ops 4’s lack of a campaign, that is. Even other notably short ones, such as Ghosts, the original MW3, and World at War clock in around the 5-7 hour range.

This is even weirder if you consider 2022’s MW2, which precedes this title. The predecessor had a campaign around seven hours in length and even longer with the optional collectibles. The reason for this huge disparity likely comes from this game’s development cycle.

The title builds upon the foundation of MW2 in many ways, not unlike DLC. It shares the same engine, some guns, and even some maps. Developer Sledgehammer Games just released a proper title two years ago with Vanguard, so the time to make this game was seemingly quite short.