Trivia / Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

• Ashcan Copy: The duration of Activision's contract with Sony for marketing of Call of Duty games was for a certain number of games released, rather than a certain number of years as is normal for these sorts of contracts. This, coupled with the game's rushed development and how heavily Modern Warfare II and III are entwined within one another (mirroring the heavy pre-reveal rumors that 2023's entry in the series would just be continued support for MWII), has had many strongly suspecting it largely exists to exhaust the contract faster, and return full control of the franchise's marketing to Microsoft post-acquisition.
• Fake Russian: Vladimir Makarov is played by US-based Bulgarian actor Julian Kostov.
  • Milena Romanova is played by Tina Ivlev (American, but has Russian ancestry).
• Meaningful Release Date: The full game releases on November 10, one day before Veterans Day. Since the official holiday falls on a Saturday, the game released when Veterans Day is observed.
• Milestone Celebration: Modern Warfare III is the twentieth mainline Call of Duty game, with one release every year since 2003. Fittingly enough, it serves as the celebration title for the series' twentieth anniversary.
• Prop Recycling: Two red dot designs from Call of Duty: Vanguard were repurposed for this game, the circular "Nydar Model 47" (appropriately renamed to "Nydar Model 2023") and the rectangular "Slate Reflector". The game also includes several laser and/or light options that reuse existing models from Modern Warfare II with slightly different effects. This also applies to the BP 50/F2000 added in Season 2.
• Role Reprise: Andrew Lincoln reprises his role as Rick Grimes, with his appearance here preceding his return in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. Likewise, Danai Gurira returns as Michonne.
• Those Two Actors: Barry Sloane (Captain Price) and Nikolai Nikolaeff (Andrei Nolan) previously worked together on Six, where Barry portrayed a SEAL while Nikolai portrayed the villain of the second season.
• Swan Song: In a sense, this was the last Call of Duty entry to be published by Activision Blizzard as an independent entity; while the game was released after Microsoft finalized the deal to acquire them, it was in development while they were still working on getting approval for the deal.
• Trolling Creator: Soap's "Hector" skin from the Black Cell pass of Season 2 has the description, "Well, I wasn't in that tunnel." This is a cheeky reference to Graves' infamous line in the Season 5 cinematic of Modern Warfare II, handwaving his survival after his apparent death in the campaign, implying that Soap somehow managed to survive being shot in the head and having his ashes scattered by his comrades.
• Troubled Production: The game was originally conceived as an expansion for the previous title and reworked into a full instalment partway through development, for reasons detailed under Ashcan Copy. As a result, the finished game was one of the most crunched titles in franchise history, only being in development for eighteen months and having to largely recycle assets from the previous game's Warzone and DMZ modes for its campaign, which was also retooled extensively as a result of Executive Meddling.
• Underage Casting: The 42-43 year old Vladimir Makarov is played by the 34-year old Julian Kostov.
• What Could Have Been: Modern Warfare III was originally conceived as an extra year of free support for MWII, hence the short campaign with an unresolved storyline and the heavy amount of content from MWII that carries forward into III.
• You Look Familiar: "Hutson", the congressman who grills General Shepherd towards the end of the game, is played by Dan Donohue; the voice of Hermann Freisinger from Call of Duty: Vanguard.