Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the fourth main installment in the Call of Duty series. The game breaks away from the World War II setting of previous entries and is instead set in modern times. Developed over two years, Modern Warfare was released in November 2007 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. A Wii port, developed by Treyarch and subtitled Reflex Edition, was released in 2009. The story takes place in the year of 2011 when a radical leader has executed the president of an unnamed country in the Middle East, and an ultranationalist movement ignites a civil war in Russia. The conflicts are seen from the perspectives of a U.S. Marine Force Recon sergeant and a British SAS commando and are set in various locales, such as the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Ukraine. The multiplayer portion of the game features numerous game modes and contains a leveling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons, weapon attachments, and camouflage schemes as they advance.
The game was praised by critics, especially for its gameplay and storyline, winning numerous "Game of the Year" titles and two BAFTA Video Games Awards. It was the top-selling game worldwide in 2007, selling around seven million copies by January 2008 and almost sixteen million by November 2013. Retrospective reviewers consider it one of the best, if not the best, games in the series, and one of the greatest video games ever made for its influential campaign and multiplayer. It was followed by two sequels that continue the storyline: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) and Modern Warfare 3 (2011).
A remastered version of the game, developed by Raven Software and titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, was released as part of special edition bundles of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in November 2016 and as a standalone game in June 2017. A reboot of the Modern Warfare game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, was released in October 2019.
