As with any Call of Duty game, my interest in Modern Warfare III waxes and wanes depending on what modes or gimmicks the FPS is offering at any given moment. Last summer, when Warzone added a mode themed around the Amazon Prime series The Boys, I jumped back in for a few weeks to roast some people with my laser eyes. Now, a new WWE game mode, called Slam Deathmatch, along with several wrestling legends available as operators, has once again pulled me back into the MW3 fray.
Season 5 of Warzone and MW3 added new base weapons, a new battle pass that includes WWE superstar Rhea Ripley, two other famous wrestler skins available to purchase (Cody Rhodes and Rey Mysterio), and a temporary new game mode called Slam Deathmatch running as a cross promo with WWE SummerSlam (which aired on August 3). It’s that last bit (and Rhea Ripley) that got me to jump back into the shooter after months away, and boy, am I glad I did. Slam Deathmatch is absolutely bananas, and a great way to get a feel for the current (and ever-shifting) CoD gun meta.
Slam Deathmatch is simple: it’s regular Team Deathmatch on smaller-sized maps, but you down enemies like in Warzone rather than outright killing them, and your grenades are disabled. When you down a player, a WWE logo will appear over their head, and you can run over and long-press your right joystick to do a finishing move on them while a WWE announcer shouts in disbelief. These aren’t the same finishing moves as the traditional CoD ones, but wrestling-themed maneuvers that include bringing a folding chair down on someone’s neck or pulling off Cody Rhodes’ famous Cross Rhodes finisher.
The first time I pulled one of these moves off, I let out a shocked little laugh—especially because I was using the Farah operator skin, who is portrayed by The Boys actor Claudia Domit. The rest of the match was predictably chaotic, with players flipping and slamming each other all over the map and bullets flying everywhere (you can’t take damage while doing a finisher, but they can be interrupted by enemies), and voice comms full of players laughing and groaning like the crowd at a major wrestling event. The next match, I was able to do a Rhea Ripley finisher while using my Rhea Ripley skin, and yeah, it was as satisfying as you’d imagine.
Slam Deathmatch is a great reminder that Call of Duty can be fun sometimes. Your last chance to play it is today, so get to it.