MW3 campaign mission list – how long is the Modern Warfare 3 campaign?

The Modern Warfare 3 campaign sees you following Captain Price and Task Force 141 in their hunt for Vladimir Makarov. Beating campaign missions isn’t just for the narrative, or the thrill: Completing missions will also give you rewards in Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer.

To that end, we’ve put together the full Modern Warfare 3 campaign mission list plus the multiplayer rewards you get for each mission, alongside an explanation of how long it takes to beat the Modern Warfare 3 campaign.

How long is the MW3 campaign?

You can complete the Modern Warfare 3 campaign on four difficulty levels, in order from easiest to hardest: recruit, regular, hardened, and veteran. These directly affect how long it takes to finish the Modern Warfare 3 campaign, since they affect how much damage you cause and can take before dying.

As a reference, on the regular difficulty mode, it takes five to seven hours to complete the Modern Warfare 3 campaign. On standard difficult, you’ll have to reasonably use cover in combat, but you also won’t die from just a couple of bullets.

Rolling the credits will take considerably longer if you’re a completionist and want to go for a run trying to get all achievements — like the tricky Elevator Out of Order, A Shot Blocked, or Back in the Field trophies — or spend time finding every weapon and item in the open-world-ish levels.

MW3 campaign mission list — all missions and multiplayer rewards

Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon

To complete the Modern Warfare 3 campaign, you officially have to finish 14 missions. One mission, “Countdown,” is not listed in the game’s campaign menu — it follows the last one, “Trojan Horse.” The length of each Modern Warfare 3 mission varies depending on the type of mission.

Completing these missions is a good opportunity not only to know what is happening with the folks of Task Force 141 but to also get rewards to use in the multiplayer modes, such as XP tokens. In Modern Warfare 3, there are two types of missions:

• Linear missions, in which reaching the end of it is limited to a single predetermined path. These are the more traditional missions that seasoned Call of Duty players are used to.
• Open Combat missions, new to Call of Duty with Modern Warfare 3. While you have specific goals, how you tackle them is up to you. You can explore the map and try different approaches to complete the mission, adjusting your loadout while playing (or replaying) based on items you’ve unlocked. Besides that, you can use vehicles and even find Sentry Guns or UAVs to use during the mission.

Image: Sledgehammer Games/Activision via Polygon

Here is a full list of all Modern Warfare 3 campaign missions. We’ve also denoted which ones are Open Combat missions, and how many items and weapons you can discover on each map. Lastly, we’ve included the multiplayer rewards you get from completing each mission:

• Operation 627 (Multiplayer rewards: Calling Card Breather)
• Precious Cargo – Open Combat mission, 21 items and weapons to discover (Multiplayer rewards: XP Token 30 minutes, Weapon XP Token 30 minutes)
• Reactor – Open Combat mission, 29 items and weapons to discover (Multiplayer rewards: Operator Corso)
• Payload (Multiplayer rewards: Calling Card Ghillie Guy)
• Deep Cover (Multiplayer rewards: XP Token 30 minutes, Weapon XP Token 30 minutes)
• Passenger
• Crash Site – Open Combat mission, 10 items and weapons to discover (Multiplayer rewards: Operator Pathfinder)
• Flashpoint (Multiplayer rewards: Calling Card Troxic Drip)
• Oligarch – Open Combat mission, 21 items and weapons to discover (Multiplayer rewards: XP Token one hour, Weapon XP Token one hour)
• Highrise – Open Combat mission, 19 items and weapons to discover (Multiplayer rewards: Operator Doc)
• Frozen Tundra (Multiplayer rewards: Calling Card Skull Rhapsody)
• Gora Dam – Open Combat mission, 21 items and weapons to discover (Multiplayer rewards: XP Token one hour, Weapon XP Token one hour)
• Danger Close (Multiplayer rewards: Operator Jabber)
• Trojan Horse (Multiplayer rewards: Weapon Brogue, Emblem Soapy)