Now that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has finally been officially revealed to the world, we have something to compare against what has been presented for far for Battlefield 3, its prime competitor. Both games will share a dangerously close release date in the fall and Electronic Arts is trying their hardest to take the the top spot away from Activision.

As we slowly learn more details about each game, we can see how true or how off the mark Electronic Arts' words are that Battlefield 3 is "superior" to Call of Duty. Let's start with each's co-operative gameplay options.

Early in the year it was confirmed that Battlefield 3 will definitely have 4-player co-op, but whether that is a separate mode or actually the entire campaign is still a point of contention with conflicting reports. We certainly hope that the full campaign can be played with friends as well as solo.

Modern Warfare 3 on the other hand is bringing back the Spec Ops mode from MW2 but with some changes. The early leaked info of Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer maps let us know that Spec Ops mode will feature both the 'Missions' mode we're familiar with and a new 'Survival' mode which pits players against wave of incoming enemies. As for campaign co-op, all we have are the following very unspecific words from Glen Schofield, VP and General Manager of Sledgehammer Games:

"The single player campaign is just one aspect of the much, much larger game of Modern Warfare 3... Aside from the campaign we have Spec Ops, two-player co-op which we’re going to bring back to Modern Warfare 3 in a very big way, and of course multiplayer, which is just amazing in itself."

So, does that mean co-op is part the campaign or is Mr. Schofield referring to one of the two Spec Ops mode? We assume he's referring to the the Spec Ops 'Missions' mode which was two-player in Modern Warfare 2. It will reportedly be heavily built upon for their next title.

Strangely, even though Modern Warfare 3 represents the third Call of Duty game since Treyarch brought us World at War, the franchise still isn't supporting 4-player co-op. World at War did it, why haven't they refined it since? The Ghost Recon, Gears of War and Operation Flashpoint franchises are bringing full campaign four-player co-op with their next titles so it's surprising and a tad disappointing that the two biggest players in the FPS genre may not be including it, even after all these iterations. Keep in mind, some reports do say Battlefield 3 has 4-player co-op campaign play which would be epic, but we don't have official confirmation on that.

We'll have to wait and see at E3 what they mean by co-op play and whether the Modern Warfare 3 development teams have truly taken enough strides forward in its multiplayer and co-op mode content.

Whatever these games do include in terms of co-op play, they better allow for at least 2-player splitscreen with system link that allows 2 players per console. No more of this forced online nonsense and 4 TVs if we want to play 4-player locally.

For now, compare the graphics and animations of these two games with our Battlefield 3 vs. Modern Warfare 3 falling buildings videos.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 hits all major platforms on November 8, 2011.

Source: Now Gamer