Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is coming Nov. 8, 2011, Kotaku has learned, delivering with it mammoth battles that engulf a dozen cities around the world including New York, Paris and London.

Multiple sources have shared details of the game's story, art, sounds and game modes with Kotaku, noting that the game will reshape the landscape of the Call of Duty franchise, bringing an impressive number of eclectic settings, deep multiplayer gaming and a story that ties up nearly all loose ends from previous titles, including the final moments of key figures in the series' history.
While we haven't seen the game in action ourselves, we've gone to great lengths to nail down as much as possible the veracity of our sources. We believe that the imagery and chief details are accurate. That doesn't mean things can't change before release, but this appears to be a full run down of where Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software is on Modern Warfare 3 as they add the final polishing touches.

The game opens moments after the cliffhanger ending of Modern Warfare 2 with the U.S. struggling to stave off a surprise Russian attack. The single-player campaign will ping-pong players around the world as they take on the multiple throwaway roles as a Russian Federal Protective Services agent, SAS Operative, tank gunner, and AC-130 gunner as well as key characters from previous installments and new recurring characters. The game will feature about 15 missions, kicking off with the invasion of Manhattan by a Russian force and wrapping up with a final encounter in Dubai.

The plot, as described, seems to be keeping with developer Infinity Ward's habit of delivering complex, short sequences punctuated by lots of gunfire and scene changes. The game also has players take control of several vehicles, returning gamers to the AC-130 gunship as a gunner and plopping them down in a tank as part of a U.S. Armored Division.

The single-player campaign, which appears to wrap up most of the unanswered questions and character fates of the first two Modern Warfare titles, also introduces new characters who appear to be destined for future Modern Warfare games, especially two Delta Force operatives codenamed "Frost" and "Sandman".

Multiplayer in the game returns with a chunky list of playable maps as well as two types of Spec Ops modes: "Survival" and "Mission".

Activision, the series' publisher, still hasn't officially unveiled any details about the game, though executives have said that a new Call of Duty game was coming this year. Last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops, developed by Treyarch, sold more than 7 million copies in the first 24 hours and within six weeks reached $1 billion in sales.This information is copied from kotaku

Modern Warfare 3 opens as Modern Warfare 2 closed: The United States under siege by Russian forces, ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov on the loose, Captain John "Soap" MacTavish and Captain John Price wounded and on the run with the Russian informant known as Nikolai.

Fleeing to a safehouse in Dharmasala, India, the three are attacked by Makarov's men. In this firefight players take on the role of Yuri, a loyalist who works for Nikolai. Their safehouse compromised, the group flee the area in a helicopter.

The game then cuts to Manhattan where Russia is launching an attack on the city from a fleet of ships parked in the Hudson River. (It appears the famous U.S.S. Intrepid may be destroyed.) The U.S. calls in Delta Force to repel the attack. You take on the role of Frost, a Delta Force operative under the command of Sandman. Your goal is to take out a jamming tower on top of the New York Stock Exchange to open the area for a U.S. counterattack.

Following the mission, Delta flies out of the city on a Blackhawk, gunning down enemy choppers as they make their way to the harbor where they have to infiltrate and take down a Russian sub which is coordinating the attack.

As the New York missions wrap up the game jumps forward in time half a year, thrusting players into the role of a Russian agent tasked with protecting the president of Russia as he flies to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. The plane is attacked by hijackers mid-air who attempt to kidnap the president and his daughter. The daughter manages to escape. The president of Russia in hand, Makarov vows to prevent a peace treaty by getting the launch codes out of the president and launching an attack against the U.S.

The game then returns us to Price, Soap and Yuri, now in Africa in a search for Makarov. They meet with a local South African arms dealer who tells them about a shipment of chemical weapons that Makarov is trying to buy. The group make their way to Sierra Leone to secure the weapons from African militia.

Next, players take on the role of an SAS operative who is tasked with stopping a delivery of weapons of mass destruction at a London dockyard. A gun battle ensues, and the agents are chased through the London subway. The mission culminates with a series of unmarked trucks exploding in front of the house of Parliament, releasing a deadly chemical agent.

Several other European cities and military bases are hit by similar terrorist attacks backed by Russia, and the death toll rises to the tens of thousands. The series of chemical attacks opens the door for a Russian military blitz strikes across the continent.

Price discovers that the South African arms dealer who tipped them off about the chemical weapons deceived them and travels to Somalia to find the man and interrogate him. Through the arms dealer, Price discovers that Makarov's right hand man, Volk, is hiding out in Paris.

The game's attention next shifts to Hamburg, Germany where players take on the role of a U.S. tank gunner fighting to push back a Russian advance backed by armored divisions.

As Hamburg falls, the game shifts us back to the story of Price and his crew. Now in Paris, players control Delta Force operative Frost who, with the help of the French special forces, leads an assault on Volk's location in the underground catacombs of the city. Next, players take to the sky supporting Frost's ground movements as a gunner in an AC-130.

After capturing and interrogating Volk, Frost learns that Makarov has a meeting in a Prague hotel. Players control Yuri as he and Soap slip into the Russian-controlled city and set-up an ambush for Makarov in a church bell tower. Makarov somehow catches wind of the trap and escapes. Soap, Yuri and Price then have to fight their way out of the city.

Yuri leads the team to one of Makarov's headquarters in the Czech mountains and the group infiltrates the location, looking for clues. They discover that the ultranationlist has the president and is trying to get the codes out of him. Makarov has also discovered the location of the Russian president's daughter. The group move out to Berlin to try and prevent her kidnapping. Playing as Frost, gamers must find the daughter and protect her, while making their way through war-torn Berlin. The daughter, however, is captured and flown away.

Frost next makes his way to the Kremlin where a task force of operatives attack and free the hostages, but Makarov manages to escape again.

The game's final mission occurs in Dubai, where Yuri, Price and Sandman launch an assault on a heavily guarded hotel, eventually finding Makarov and, yes, finally killing him.

Alpha
Alps
Bootleg
Bravo
Brooklyn
Carbon
Coast
Dome
Exchange
Hardhat
Interchange
Lambeth
Meteora
Mogadishu
Paris
Plaza 2
Radar
Seatown
Underground
Village

There's so much happening with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 that Game Hunters has already chimed in with the latest on the Modern Warfare 3 story and the Call of Duty phenomenon.

Another great aspect of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that's getting upgrades in MW3 is Spec Ops, the single-player or cooperative combat aspect of the game.

In Modern Warfare 3, Spec Ops gains its own progressive ranking system, online matchmaking system and leaderboards. There's also a new survival mode that plays out on the multiplayer maps; Modern Warfare 2's Spec Ops missions took place on single-player maps (as will the new game's traditional Spec Ops mode).

"All that stuff really fleshes out Spec Ops and adds in a lot that we know our fans are going to love, some of the most addictive aspects of multiplayer," says Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling.

I teamed with Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin for a couple of tries at Spec Ops' new Survival mode on a map currently called Dome, a derelict Cold War-era desert radar command bunker.

As we dispatched ever-increasing waves of enemies, I discarded my pistol for a shotgun. Rubin passed me some in-game currency and I bought and installed a turret to keep the evildoers at bay, while I watched for attack dogs.

After a few waves, the attack dogs became suicide bomber dogs that exploded a few seconds after you shot them. The next wave brought the kamikaze soldiers who exploded similarly.

"You definitely have to change up your strategy as the enemy changes up," Bowling said afterward. "Obviously how you fight the kamikaze dudes is different from how you fight the normal dudes and how you fight a dog is different from a dude and how you fight juggernauts, they are not only big and armored, so they will just brute force come at you. But they each have their own way of being taken out effectively."

Yes, there are juggernauts returning from the previous games; there will be several different types of them, too. But back in the game, I took heed from Rubin on how to counterattack choppers raining fire from overhead. The game has an unlimited number of waves. "We got up to wave 8 which is really a good wave for a first-time player," Rubin pronounces afterward.

"You were certainly very animated," said Michael Condrey of MW3 co-development studio Sledgehammer Games. "That's a good sign that you were having fun."

In truth, Spec Ops was already a favorite mode of mine that I used in advance of the few times I ventured into the online MW2 multiplayer matches. The developers hope that even more players use the mode to perhaps graduate to multiplayer.

"We have all been challenged. There's such hard-core players out there in the online community and you hear all the stories about (youngsters) swearing and ruining the experience," Condrey says. "With Spec Ops, you can really get in there and hone your skills in a more confined environment. I think it's a little more of an easy entry. I don't have as much time as I did when I was 20 to be honing my twitch skills, but this certainly gives me a venue to experiment."

Adds Rubin, "We added Spec Ops as the third game mode. That is really stepped up this time. It is really a stronger leg of the tripod."

This is completely a lie you can pay for map packs on day 1 no cost and premium stat tracking]

Tank footage show at EA press conference is possibly the first mission in the game
New suppression system -
Operation Metro - rush gamemode, close combat, play as U.S. Marines, take on Russian forces in heart of Paris, infantry focus
Operation Metro objective is to take back Stock Exchange
Team Deatchmatch, Conquest, Rush gamemodes confirmed
Battle Log - hub for social Battlefield experience
4 classes tuned for teamplay - Assault (medic abilities), Engineer (anti-vehicle, repair), Support (give ammo, suppressive fire), Recon (main focus supplying intel)
Heavily focused on unlocks, more than any Battlefield game, customization key
Engineer has flashlight under-slung on weapon for lighting up area, blinding enemy
Every weapon has 3 customization slots (barrels, etc)
Support solider has bi-pod - placed on any surface in game (more accuracy)
New feature called Suppression - all the bullets you fire at an enemy affect them regardless if you hit them or not. All the bullets you fire that get close enough will start to reduce their combat efficiency. Squad can then flank the enemy and you will receive a Suppression score.
Jets, boats, tanks, helicopters confirmed
LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicle confirmed, also in Operation Metro
Dog tags - fully customizable, dynamically updated, only obtainable from knife kills in the back
Knifing system more dramatic, spectacular

On the death screen it now displays statistics of how many times you have killed the person who killed you and how man times they killed you (e.g. 2-1)
When deployed it displays on the bottom of the screen a countdown of when a squad member can spawn on you, and when they spawn who it is
Most of the rifles that we played with had 3 fire mode : automatic, semi-automatic, and single shot
After you are killed the health of the person who killed you is shown as a heath bar over their head
When your in a vehicle and stopped the camera begins to shake from the rattling of the engine
Flashlight can blind you momentary if someone points it directly at you
100 points for killing someone, 10 extra points for a headshot, 100 points for reviving
In order to revive you must hover over the dead body and hold down left mouse button while your character rubs the paddles together and charges them before the player is revived
2 grenades were given by default
In order to knife in this build of the game you need to press f to do quick knife. When pressed you enter into an animation that will pull you close to your enemy and you will grab their head and execute them by slitting their throat
You can only obtain an enemys dog tag if the quick knife command is done when you are behind your enemy
The knife seems more like a switchblade than the classic knife we are used to
Commo rose is not in the build we played. EA wouldn't give us a firm yes or not when asked if it would be in the final version of the game
--On the death screen it now displays statistics of how many times you have killed the person who killed you and how man times they killed you (e.g. 2-1)
--When deployed it displays on the bottom of the screen a countdown of when a squad member can spawn on you, and when they spawn who it is
--Most of the rifles that we played with had 3 fire mode : automatic, semi-automatic, and single shot
--After you are killed the health of the person who killed you is shown as a heath bar over their head
--When your in a vehicle and stopped the camera begins to shake from the rattling of the engine
--Flashlight can blind you momentary if someone points it directly at you
--100 points for killing someone, 10 extra points for a headshot, 100 points for reviving
--In order to revive you must hover over the dead body and hold down left mouse button while your character rubs the paddles together and charges them before the player is revived
--2 grenades were given by default
--In order to knife in this build of the game you need to press f to do quick knife. When pressed you enter into an animation that will pull you close to your enemy and you will grab their head and execute them by slitting their throat
--You can only obtain an enemys dog tag if the quick knife command is done when you are behind your enemy
--The knife seems more like a switchblade than the classic knife we are used to
--Commo rose is not in the build we played. EA wouldn't give us a firm yes or not when asked if it would be in the final version of the game

Overall the game was very smooth for something that is pre-alpha. We never notices any framerate loss while we were playing. The game has a Battlefield: Bad Company 2 feel, but it's a lot more than that. If you try to jump over something you don't just simply jump, you see an animation of your solider leaping over. It's Bad Company 2 on crack with mind-blowing graphics, more intense gameplay, amazing weapon customization, superb animations, and most important of all it's the most fun we have had playing a Battlefield game.


E3 Battlefield 3 Booth Walkthrough Part 1
15:07 PST | ^Scott^
Before we were allowed to play Battlefield 3, DICE's Lars Gustafsson, BF3 Lead Multiplayer Designer briefed a small group of us about the game. We'll have our impressions of the game later!

--Tank footage show at EA press conference is possibly the first mission in the game
--New suppression system -
--Operation Metro - rush gamemode, close combat, play as U.S. Marines, take on Russian forces in heart of Paris, infantry focus
--Operation Metro objective is to take back Stock Exchange
--Team Deatchmatch, Conquest, Rush gamemodes confirmed
--Battle Log - hub for social Battlefield experience
--4 classes tuned for teamplay - Assault (medic abilities), Engineer (anti-vehicle, repair), Support (give ammo, suppressive fire), Recon (main focus supplying intel)
--Heavily focused on unlocks, more than any Battlefield game, customization key
--Engineer has flashlight under-slung on weapon for lighting up area, blinding enemy
--Every weapon has 3 customization slots (barrels, etc)
--Support solider has bi-pod - placed on any surface in game (more accuracy)
--New feature called Suppression - all the bullets you fire at an enemy affect them regardless if you hit them or not. All the bullets you fire that get close enough will start to reduce their combat efficiency. Squad can then flank the enemy and you will receive a Suppression score.
--Jets, boats, tanks, helicopters confirmed
--LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicle confirmed, also in Operation Metro
--Dog tags - fully customizable, dynamically updated, only obtainable from knife kills in the back
--Knifing system more dramatic, spectacular. info from coreclan.net

Gather up, fellow Battlefield 3 enthusiasts, and prepare to be even more hyped for BF3!
Here's some new info for the yet to be released game (in addition to these)
Important things from article:
when there's an explosion near you, your soldier is projected to the ground, and it apparetnly isn't scripted. when you get too much shots your soldier starts closing and opening his eyes(?) from the pain, and your visibility gets bad.
the maps should be very varied(new york, paris, nocturn, desert, etc)
frostibite 2.0 has been in devellopment since 2008. "PC Jeux" got surprised by the engine, it's kind of revolutionary, like the first engine from Crysis was back in 2007.

Operation Metro

The first Battlefield 3 map to be showcased is Operation Metro, which was playable during E3 2011. The map features a Rush mode, and is set in Paris, where the battlegrounds range from parks, to city streets, to underground subways. To see more of Operation Metro, check out this video.
Gulf of Oman

Gulf of Oman will retain much of the same visual style as the Battlefield 2 version, and a very similar desert setting, with both urban areas and more wide-open spaces for tank and jet combat.
Sharqi Peninsula

Sharqui Peninsula was a tight, urban map in Battlefield 2, and it looks to continue that style in Battlefield 3, set during the evening, which provided interesting and warm colors.
Wake Island

Wake Island takes a big departure from the Battlefield 2 version. Instead of lush, tropical visuals, we get a more darker and gritty map which has been ravaged by war and combat.
Strike at Karkand

Strike at Karkand was a dusty, grim map in Battlefield 2 with low visibility and almost no colors besides khaki. The Battlefield 3 version looks a lot more colorful and lifelike, which will be welcomed in the remake of a classic.

Like battlefield bad company 2 it has a survival game mode that you can play online much like the special ops in mw3.

Like almost all major ea games to fully enjoy battlefield you will have purchase the game new or buy and online pass to fully enjoy all the game has to offer.

The graphics will not be dumbed down but the multi player will have less players thats awesome still.