Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 campaign verdict – is Call of Duty devouring itself?

The latest title in the billion-dollar Call of Duty franchise is out today. Here's our take on its futuristic campaign

It is the future and everything has gone really wrong. The looming threat of nuclear annihilation is over thanks to the development of super reliable air defences but this has only led to an endless state of paranoid cold war. Armed factions gather around the world's dwindling resources, mega corporations obsess over new ways to push their expensive technologies and government agencies seek ever more inventive ways to assassinate privacy. It's a big old mess.

The third Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign, then, is another globe-trotting conspiracy thriller filled with secret bases, covert government programmes and wise-cracking solders just trying to keep their shit together as the galaxy collapses around them. You enter the maelstrom as fresh-faced rookie, fighting for the Winslow Accord, which sounds like a Terrence Rattigan play, but is actually a gathering of countries looking to ring fence themselves from swarthy foreigners. An Egyptian minister has been kidnapped by the evil Nile River Coalition, and you need to get him back.