Say hello to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s big bad — Mads Mikkelsen
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has stamped a release date and a fresh trailer, with a familiar face stepping in as its central villain.
If you thought Call of Duty was losing steam, apparently not — Modern Warfare 4 is coming in with all guns blazing this autumn. Fresh off the presses, we’ve got the first big campaign trailer drop, giving us a look at the plot, some bullet-riddled South Korean action, and a villain reveal that’ll make your eyebrows shoot up.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 hits PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC on 23 October.
Mads Mikkelsen: The New Bad Guy
Any regular CoD fan knows they love a Hollywood baddie, and this time it’s proper A-list: Mads Mikkelsen has joined the cast as the game’s lead villain, Archer. The trailer saves his big moment for the end — he’s there, menacing Captain Price and promising a sort of poetic, very unhinged vengeance. If you believe the internet’s tipsters (and lately, they’re definitely right more than they’re wrong), it’s not just a cameo: Mikkelsen is set up as the story’s main threat, a proper era-defining psycho in line with the franchise’s tradition of big-name antagonists. And Mikkelsen isn’t new to gaming either — if you remember Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, he played the memorably creepy Cliff Unger, and he’s had past form as Le Chiffre in the Quantum of Solace video game tie-in.
The Campaign: Two Teams, One Meltdown
This year’s Modern Warfare 4 campaign is split between two massive storylines. One has you playing as South Korean Private Park Hyun Jun, right in the middle of a full-on invasion of Korea. There’s close-quarters fighting, amphibious assaults, and city blocks turning into shooting galleries, as both American and South Korean forces try to hold the line.
The other campaign thread follows John Price — yes, that John Price, ex-Task Force 141. After topping General Shepherd to avenge Soap’s death (thanks, Modern Warfare III), he’s now pegged as a rogue agent, being hunted by his own mates, including Ghost. He’s not about to disappear quietly either, since he’s still trying to stop Makarov and, logically, Mikkelsen’s Archer, who’s dangling some sort of doomsday device that could set off a whole new round of global horror.
Infinity Ward describes Modern Warfare 4 as the definitive conclusion to the rebooted saga begun in 2019.
Whether ‘definitive’ is just PR or actually means these characters get written off for good is, as usual, a mystery for another year.