Building comparison
head to head
Call of Duty: Modern WarfarevsQuake III Arena
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is optimization, and it is a single point.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Execution · Pure Mechanics
A tactical military shooter where aim against human opponents is the deciding factor.
Quake III Arena
Execution · Pure Mechanics
Pure aim and movement skill tested against adaptive human opponents competing for spawn-cycle dominance.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Quake III Arena leans Execution (Pure Mechanics).
Call of Duty: Modern WarfareQuake III Arena
Axis by axis
Execution9 vs 9
Same score on execution - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
aim and reflexes decide engagements
Quake III Arena
Rail and rocket aim at speed is the entire game
Reads6 vs 6
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
predicting human opponents' positioning
Quake III Arena
Human opponents adapt their routes and timings in direct response
Variance2 vs 2
Same score on variance - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
spawns and loadout drops vary
Quake III Arena
Spawn locations have mild randomness but are quickly mapped
Optimization4 vs 5
Quake III Arena leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
loadouts and map knowledge solvable
Quake III Arena
Armor and weapon timing routes are learnable and highly leveraged
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.