“Call of Duty” has been around since 2003, with “Modern Warfare III” marking the third entry in the rebooted franchise based on the original from the late 2000s and early 2010s. For fans, the previous yearly entry into the franchise, “Modern Warfare II,” proved rough and made for an incredibly bland year. In response, Activision published “Modern Warfare III,” which aims to fix everything that went wrong in the beloved arcade FPS game the prior year. This leaves Sledgehammer Games to pull the weight of the franchise for another year, while Treyarch prepares the next entry.

The multiplayer remains the shining star of this annual package of a video game. “Modern Warfare III” improves on everything from the prior game. Movement feels buttery smooth and speedy, weaponry has a better predictable recoil and the perk system actually makes sense again. Rather than waiting for the perks to load like in “Modern Warfare II,” players can equip a piece of equipment to give them the perk which then lasts for the entirety of the match. Scorestreaks come across as a tad bland as they feel reused from the year prior.

The biggest part of the game comes in the form of then remade maps from “Call of Duty” 2009, “Modern Warfare 2.” The game’s multiplayer came with a massive amount of remade maps like Terminal and Favela, making diehards nostalgic for what “Call of Duty” used to be. The maps prove well made and from the moment players step into them, they’ll know them like the backs of their hands — assuming they played “Call of Duty” 14 years ago.

The other two slices of the “Modern Warfare III” package, the campaign and the zombies mode, are severely lacking. The campaign’s main problem isn’t that it’s short despite what the internet wants players to believe — the problem with the campaign lies in its directionless story. It feels as though the minute things start getting interesting, the game moves on and attempts something else. There’s never time to let the story branches breathe.

The zombies mode feels like an attempt to appease fans of the classic Treyarch zombies gamemode while also appealing to the crowd that played DMZ in the last entry since they have ceased working on the mode. It’s unoriginal and only fun for a few hours and with friends.

The biggest problem with “Modern Warfare III” comes in its lack of identity. It truly does just feel like a $70 DLC that should have been released as a $20 expansion or patch update on last year’s entry.

“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III” feels like a mostly lazy and lackluster package meant to hold everyone over until next year’s release. The fault of that should not be placed on the developers over at Sledgehammer Games, but rather on the executives for willing it into existence just to avoid missing a year of “Call of Duty” profit. The developers did their best with what they had, and the multiplayer is some of the most fun players will have in recent “Call of Duty” memory. Maybe just wait for the game to go on sale before purchasing.

4.5 K/D ratio out of 10