Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the direct sequel to Modern Warfare 2 (2022) and brings Captain Price and Task Force 141 into battle against a particular villain, whom even the campaign developers find intimidating.
What kind of villain is this? The main antagonist of Modern Warfare 3 will be the ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov, whom many players may already know from previous games and whose return was hinted at the end of Modern Warfare 2 (2022).
Makarov was the leader of a terrorist cell in the original MW installments, fueling war and hatred, and detonated an atomic bomb in Modern Warfare 1 (2007), which claimed thousands of lives.
Moreover, Makarov was the focal point of one of the most well-known and controversial missions in the history of CoD: “No Russian.”
What was the mission ‘No Russian’ about?
The mission of the MW2 released in 2009 puts the player in the role of CIA agent “Joseph Allen,” who is murdered by Makarov at the end of the mission.
Allen’s goal in “No Russian” was to gain Makarov’s trust, who, with a group of heavily armed terrorists, executed an attack on a fictional airport in Moscow and killed civilians to pin the act on the Americans.
Makarov’s plan worked, leading to war between Russia and the USA, as Russian authorities believed the Americans were behind the attack.
The developers: “He is the villain you love to hate”
What do the MW3 developers say about Makarov? MeinMMO author Dariusz Müller interviewed CoD developers Shelby Carleton and Dave Swenson about the campaign of Modern Warfare 3.
Carleton revealed to us in the conversation how special it felt for them as a self-proclaimed CoD fan to work on a character like Makarov:
“When I heard that Makarov would be our villain, I was overjoyed. On one hand, I thought, how intimidating is this character? He is so notorious, right? He is the villain you love to hate, in the Call of Duty franchise.”
A special impression was also left on her by the performance of actor Julian Kostov, who plays the role of Makarov in MW3:
“It is hard to put into words how one feels as a fan of the series when writing the lines for Makarov and then seeing our great actor Julian speak them, even better and more intimidating than one could ever imagine in their head.”
What role does Makarov play in MW3? Carleton made it clear that Makarov will play a central role in the story of MW3.
“Makarov has always been somewhat at the center, and the other conflicts were like spokes of a wheel that emerged from Makarov’s actions. His relationship with all the characters and the conflicts he creates are all incredibly interconnected, and I think that really helped to place Makarov at the center of the narrative.”
During our conversation, Carleton elaborates that while the campaign is also about heroes like Price and Farah trying to stop Makarov, the ultranationalist’s influence as an antagonist extends to everything else:
“All these characters are our wonderful protagonists trying to stop him, but as an antagonist, he definitely… plays a central role and everything he does has an impact on everything else.”
What else did the developers talk about? In addition to Makarov, a large part of our conversation revolved around the “open combat missions” being introduced with MW3 into the CoD franchise, which will provide players with new possibilities.
Dave Swenson explained to me, for example, how free players really are within these new missions, as I feared that there would only be predetermined paths, such as loud or stealth:
“Very free. So free, in fact, that during our initial tests we invited the multiplayer team to play the campaign, and while we watched them, they often did things we didn’t expect, even things we hadn’t thought of.”
Unfortunately, there will be no option to play these missions cooperatively with friends or create sandbox levels to share with other players, yet Swenson sees significant replay value in the open combat missions.
If you want to read more about Makarov, you can find out more about past appearances of the villain here: Makarov returns – Who is the ‘new’ villain?
