In 2016, 5 years after Modern Warfare, despite the efforts of the United States Marine Corps and the Special Air Service, the Ultranationalists defeated the Loyalists forces, seized control of Russia and declared Imran Zakhaev a hero and martyr, erecting a statue of him in the heart of the Red Square. Weapon inspection is included in the game as well. It is the first time this kind of reloading animation appears in a Call of Duty game. For example, when reloading an empty M1014 or W1200, the character puts a shotgun shell into the chamber first, then loads other rounds normally.
Weapon models are upgraded with more details, and most of reload animations are redesigned. One is a reference to the "Stealth Clown" joke within the community back in 2009, Yuri being a physical NPC in the infamous No Russian mission and killing Shepherd at the start of S.S.D.D. awards the player with a trophy, Precognitive Paranoia, making reference to the Time Paradox achievement that the player gets for killing Makarov in Modern Warfare Remastered. The other small details included Roach killing a Russian soldier sitting in a chair in Cliffhanger, Soap coughing up water near the end of Endgame and new animations for knifing the dying Shadow Company soldiers in the helicopter wreck and Price's hat falling off during his fight with Shepherd. Radio chatter is also improved in quality making it easier to hear. Voice acting in the form of heavy breathing and pained moans and grunts when the player is injured.
Most weapons now have different reloading animations compared to the original guns along with different sounds when firing along with most of the weapons being properly modeled after their real-life counterparts. Allen is riding in, explaining why in the original game he was laying on the ground as soon as the level started. At the start of Team Player, a short cutscene not present in the original game is shown where an RPG-7's rocket hits the jeep that Pvt. Joseph Allen's body would knock Allen's rifle aside and Gary "Roach" Sanderson would grab General Shepherd's arm as he picked the DSM up who sneers at Roach and yanks his arm out of Roach's grasp, along with the Shadow Company soldier who soaks Roach and Ghost in gasoline looking at them burn instead of the original where he just walks off. The game also features a few tweaked scenes such as the FSB soldier checking on Pvt. Character models are highly realistic and detailed with some of them having a new character design. The remaster works in a similar way to the remaster of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, sharing the same engine with various enhancements in terms of visual and audio design.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered only features the campaign of Modern Warfare 2 including the Museum level.