How Long Modern Warfare 3 Campaign Takes to Beat

Ahead of the full release of the game, the single-player early access has arrived for Modern Warfare 3. If you’re jumping into the story ahead of the multiplayer, we have a breakdown of how long the Modern Warfare 3 campaign takes to beat.

MW3 Campaign Length

Expanding even further on what was started in last year’s MW2 campaign, Modern Warfare 3 features Open Combat missions, which you can complete on a larger open level.

You’ll need to tick off particular objectives at your own pace, heading between locations as you go. It’ll be slower-paced than most Call of Duty campaign missions and will feature slightly more challenging progression. Not every mission will be like that, but they’ll pop up from time to time.

Since it has been revealed that MW3 will have 15 campaign missions, we thought the length would be similar to previous Modern Warfare installments. However, personal experience has confirmed that the campaign is potentially one of the shortest in the series despite the introduction of Open Combat Missions.

Modern Warfare 3’s campaign length is around 3 – 4 hours depending on thoroughness and speed, but even the slowest playthroughs will see this story concluded in a maximum of 6 hours.

Open Combat missions promise to be open-ended and offer unprecedented freedom. While they do allow the player to approach the objective in their own way, it ultimately doesn’t matter. The objectives in OC missions are not optional, and you must complete all objectives to continue. Due to this, you’ll find yourself playing the game like usual but only on a larger map.

Open Combat missions were expected to be twice as long as a regular level. However, since they have significantly fewer cutscenes, nonexistent role-playing, or characters interacting with each other to pad the time, their length is laughably short. Your general options in approaching these missions are twofold: guns blazing or stealth.

Running and gunning will have each OC mission done in record time, while stealth devolves into trying to keep quiet before becoming bored and just shooting the enemies. The effort was there with Open Combat missions, but they aren’t quite up to snuff. If you’re looking to speed up the levels, we recommend going in guns blazing with the difficulty set to Recruit.

Campaign Early Access

The length of MW3’s campaign means it should be easy to get it completed during early access, before the full game and all of the multiplayer modes launch on November 10.

If you buy the game digitally, you can play the campaign from November 2, but anyone who purchases the physical version will have to wait until November 10.

That’s it for how long Modern Warfare 3’s campaign takes to beat. We’ll have loads of other MW3 campaign guides as the game releases, so keep checking back with Twinfinite.