22 mainline entries and 500 million copies later, Call of Duty remains an active staple in the video games industry. The franchise was basically the catalyst for a transformative era of multiplayer gaming, a period often associated with foul-mouthed teens on voice chat, co-branded Doritos and Mountain Dew, and the sweatiest sniping comps on Rust that you’ve ever seen.
Of course, there’s a more controversial side to the series as well, maligned by egregious monetization and a repetitive annual release model. But despite everything, Call of Duty remains a cultural juggernaut. And with Black Ops 7’s release right around the corner, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to look back on the franchise by going over every Call of Duty game in chronological order.
1. Call of Duty
- Release Date: October 29, 2003
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Nokia N-Gage
The game that started it all, Call of Duty 2003, established the fundamental elements of the franchise. It offered gritty boots-on-the-ground action where the apocalyptic weight of World War II loomed heavy. Squad play was simply essential, even in the campaign; health regeneration was tied to medkits scattered across its levels, and experiencing a nearby explosion triggered an on-screen shellshocked effect, leaving your character stunned for a few seconds.
Its narrative transported players to the most awe-inspiring theatres of WWII, we’re talking muddy trench warfare in Normandy to the all-out bloodbath at Stalingrad. The game also introduced players to Cpt. John Price, albeit in a far smaller role as compared to future titles. All in all, while the first Call of Duty has aged milk, it remains a cultural touchstone.
2. Call of Duty 2
- Release Date: October 25, 2005
- Platforms: PC, MacOS, Xbox 360
Can you believe that Call of Duty 2 is the only franchise entry to not release within a year of its predecessor? Nowadays, you’d get escorted out of Activision’s premises for even suggesting that they skip the annual holiday revenue in favor of developing a more refined product. Well, that’s precisely what the CoD’s sequel did – it built upon everything that made the first game great and added new mechanics and equipment to flesh out its brand of first-person warfare.
The new inclusions ranged from crucial systems such as health regeneration to throwable equipment like Frags and Smoke Grenades. Overall, Call of Duty 2 felt bigger, sharper, and more immersive, setting the standard for console shooters on the Xbox 360.
3. Call of Duty 3
- Release Date: November 7, 2006
- Platforms: PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii
Call of Duty 3 was the first game not developed by Infinity Ward, as Treyarch stepped up to the mantle instead. The game generally felt like a safer sequel, sticking with everything that worked, while expanding on the multiplayer side of things with larger lobbies and vehicular combat. Not a landmark entry by any means, but it was the first display of Activision’s annual release model in full flow.
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Release Date: November 5, 2007
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii
With Modern Warfare 2007, we officially entered Call of Duty’s sub-franchise era. Over a decade removed from its release and every part of the game still feels iconic. Even the plain, understated intro where Price is basically laying out the fundamentals of a first-person shooter has clung onto the memory of many, let alone the rest of the action-packed, ground-breaking campaign.
The game’s biggest innovations came in the multiplayer, with the introduction of Prestige, custom loadouts, Killstreaks, constant progression, and much more. It effectively established the blueprint for online shooters, one that Call of Duty desperately relies on to this day.
5. Call of Duty: World at War
- Release Date: November 11, 2008
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii
Treyarch took Call of Duty back to the trenches with World at War, delivering a cinematic campaign that was significantly darker and more visceral than previous attempts. It showcased the brutality of the war across all regional theatres, including a bloody skirmish at Stalingrad, which ended with you and Gary Oldman hoisting the Soviet flag over the decimated Reichstag.
The game also featured a Zombies mode for the very first time, and I’d imagine that even Treyarch had no clue how much fanfare this co-op mode would end up generating.
6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Release Date: November 10, 2009
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Hans Zimmer soundtrack, the debut of Rust, and ‘No Russian,’ – there, that’s my argument for Modern Warfare 2 being the best Call of Duty of all time. To this day, the game’s campaign is unlike anything else. The variety of locations, combat scenarios, set-pieces, and the plot tying it together – it all is, I don’t use this word lightly, perfect.
Multiplayer hit a similar note with an excellent selection of maps, new Perks and Killstreaks, a solid arsenal of weapons, and more. Modern Warfare 2 was the perfect illustration of what Call of Duty looks like when it’s firing on all cylinders, and we may never see the franchise reach those peaks again.
7. Call of Duty: Black Ops
- Release Date: November 9, 2010
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS
As an avid Cold War enthusiast, Black Ops felt like it was made for me. It took the franchise into the murky world of spies, coups, and not-so-subtle espionage, marking an incredible tonal shift. That cigar smoke intro is still my favorite Call of Duty moment of all time, as it exudes a sense of nonchalance you wouldn’t expect from the ‘rogue’ operatives pulling off the Bay of Pigs.
Multiplayer was equally strong, thanks to a robust map roster and Treyarch’s signature gunplay, which felt more arcade-y than its Modern Warfare counterpart. Zombies also grew in complexity via the addition of fan-favorite maps and cutscenes. In short, Black Ops is arguably a top-three Call of Duty of all time.
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
- Release Date: November 8, 2011
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii
Infinity Ward (with the help of Sledgehammer) closed out the original Modern Warfare trilogy with a bang. The campaign cranked the global chaos to eleven, taking players from war-torn streets of New York to a besieged Paris and a sandstorm-blasted Middle East. Set-piece after set-piece, it leaned into the cinematic spectacle that had made MW2 legendary.
Multiplayer picked up exactly where MW2 left off, with new maps, perks, and killstreaks keeping the addictive loop alive. In a nutshell, MW3 was Call of Duty at peak spectacle: fast, bombastic, and impossible to put down, even if it didn’t manage to surpass its predecessor.
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
- Release Date: November 13, 2012
- Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii U
Treyarch took a bold leap with Black Ops 2, blending Cold War flashbacks with a near-future setting that felt strangely prescient. The campaign introduced branching storylines and multiple endings, giving players a sense that their choices actually mattered, which was previously unheard of for the franchise.
Multiplayer evolved with League Play, new scorestreaks, and iconic maps such as Hijacked and Raid that rewarded pure skill. Zombies continued its rise as a cult phenomenon, with Tranzit Easter eggs that kept fans obsessing for weeks. Black Ops 2 was easily the best iteration of Treyarch’s sub-franchise, which is probably why Black Ops 7 is borrowing so heavily from it all these years later.
10. Call of Duty: Ghosts
- Release Date: November 5, 2013
- Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Wii
2013’s Ghosts was probably the first time I felt a hint of Call of Duty fatigue. Everything about the game just felt so by-the-numbers that I’m honestly struggling to remember anything from it – barring Riley, of course. He was a good boy. For Sledgehammer’s first solo outing, Ghosts really failed to deliver a strong sense of personality, as Black Ops did for Treyarch. Thankfully, the studio would go on to correct that misfire very soon.
11. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
- Release Date: November 4, 2014
- Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
With Sledgehammer returning to the helm, Call of Duty took the futuristic leap with Advanced Warfare. The franchise’s standard arsenal of realistic weapons was replaced by high-tech arms and equipment, all tacked onto an exo-suit that made soldiers feel superhuman. Moment-to-moment gameplay was transformed by boosters and the jetpack, injecting a dose of verticality into the Call of Duty loop.
As you probably remember, not everyone was on board with the sci-fi shift. Players argued that all the movement mechanics made the game sweatier than ever before, while also deviating from its mil-sim DNA. Personally, I think we were pretty harsh on one of the series’ most daring outings yet, especially since that sense of endeavor feels so starkly absent from modern-day Call of Duty.
12. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3
- Release Date: November 6, 2015
- Platforms: PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Treyarch leaned even further into the future with Black Ops 3, blending cybernetic enhancements, wall-running, and jetboosts into a campaign that was darker and more twisted than anything before. The story leaned into conspiracy, brain hacks, and morally gray characters, giving players a sense that the franchise could still surprise.
Multiplayer embraced the new movement mechanics, rewarding verticality and agility while keeping the gunplay tight and satisfying. But the greatest legacy of Black Ops 3 is undoubtedly Zombies, which grew into a full-blown saga. The launch package included maps such as Shadows of Evil and The Giant, before the Zombies Chronicles DLC added classics such as Mob of the Dead and Moon. To this day, BO3 remains the go-to Call of Duty for Zombies fans, and it only takes ten or so rounds on Der Eisendrache to understand why.
13. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- Release Date: November 4, 2016
- Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Infinite Warfare feels like such an anomaly when you look at the Call of Duty catalogue. Even when the franchise was flirting with futuristic elements, it still had that boots-on-the-ground feel that defined the IP. But with IW (Infinite Warfare), Infinity Ward aimed straight for the stratosphere, devising a space-faring adventure where you were flying sci-fi vessels and wrestling against zero gravity.
Its campaign was packed with interstellar politics and futuristic jargon, and even starred Kit Harrington as the big bad. The game feels so ludicrous in retrospect, but not necessarily in a bad way. Infinite Warfare shot for the moon in every way possible, and that’s quite endearing, even if it missed the mark by about 149 million kilometers.
14. Call of Duty: WWII
- Release Date: November 3, 2017
- Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
After every brazen adventure, you often get the overcorrection. That’s precisely what 2017’s WWII was, as Call of Duty returned to its roots in emphatic fashion, perhaps with too much fervour. While the game delivered a truly memorable campaign that explored the horrors of the Holocaust, it took too many steps back when it came to the gameplay.
Gone was the slick movement and the exosuit-fueled verticality, replaced by grounded mechanics and weighty gunplay that aimed for authenticity but often crossed into stiffness. Of course, many fans loved this return to the series’ roots, making WWII a successful entry in the long-running franchise.
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
- Release Date: October 12, 2018
- Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
It’s 2018, and we’re in the midst of a Twitch boom, mainly attributed to the rising popularity of the Battle Royale genre. DayZ and PUBG are breaking records left and right, while Fortnite is quickly turning into the face of the industry. So, how does Call of Duty respond? By releasing a full-price multiplayer game with a BR mode pieced together from the series’ most iconic maps. Oh, and no campaign, because who even plays those anymore?
BO4 is easily among the most divisive entries in the franchise, largely because of the reasons mentioned above. Its flaws can be linked to poor attempts at adopting contemporary trends, like doubling down on the Specialists system, which clearly drew inspiration from Hero-shooters such as Overwatch. The same goes for Blackout as well, of course, but it was starkly lacking in the complexity and tension that make the genre so enticing. Despite all this, Black Ops 4 was still a fun game, and that’s worth something at the end of the day.
16. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Reboot)
- Release Date: October 25, 2019
- Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Modern Warfare 2019 hit the reset on Infinity Ward’s marquee sub-franchise, bringing back the photorealistic, cinematic action of the 2007 classic. It saw the return of Captain Price and co in yet another enthralling campaign featuring one of the best openings in any Call of Duty ever, alongside timeless missions such as Clean House, Embedded, and Highway of Death.
Multiplayer retained the realistic approach through mechanics like door peeking and weapon mounting. Movement was also quite weighty, with little in the way of advanced movement tech. As you’d expect, this approach appeased franchise purists, while those who prefer free-flowing movement grew to resent the Modern Warfare reboot. Be that as it may, the game sold like hotcakes and currently ranks as the third-highest selling Call of Duty of all time.
The momentum from its launch grew tenfold after the release of Warzone, which saw the franchise adopt the free-to-play model for the first time ever. The Battle Royale plunge was built on the fundamentals of Modern Warfare’s gameplay, featuring all of the game’s weapons, equipment, killstreaks, operators, and more.
It’s frankly hard to capture how special the first six months of Warzone were. Verdansk instantly felt the perfect combination of scale and intrigue, offering ample breathing room while being dotted with well-designed POIs all over. The BR’s progression felt like an organic expansion of the multiplayer formula, inducing a grind that was so enjoyable that I was contemplating a streaming career at one point (since I was no-lifing the game).
The momentum dwindled eventually, of course, and now Warzone is a shadow of its prior self. After multiple mid-adventures with different maps, the BR has returned to Verdansk, brought back all the MW weapons players loved, and is banking on nostalgia to sustain it. This alone speaks volumes about how incredible the OG formula was.
17. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- Release Date: November 13, 2020
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Aside from being the worst-named Call of Duty of all time, Black Ops Cold War is probably the most underrated as well. Its development was quite turbulent as it bounced between studios, starting at Sledgehammer and Raven before eventually ending up with Treyarch. Despite the messy cycle, BOCW delivered in almost every department, be it the spy-thriller campaign that hit all your necessary Cold War notes or the solid multiplayer package, which was decked out with vintage maps.
The campaign, in particular, was the star of the show and showcased Raven’s ingenuity. It had you traversing the treacherous jungles of Vietnam in one mission before dropping you into the KGB’s headquarters for high-stakes espionage in the next. Cold War’s campaign also managed to do something no CoD has done since: provide a truly iconic character in Russell Adler.
18. Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Release Date: November 5, 2021
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Vanguard was the very definition of a “filler” CoD. It felt like the game was merely a product of the annual Call of Duty machine, serving as a stopgap until Modern Warfare 2, primed to be another transformative entry by Infinity Ward, arrived
On its own merits, the game was largely by-the-numbers. Its campaign returned to the franchise’s comfortable WWII roots but delivered a bland iteration of that formula. Multiplayer was slightly more interesting thanks to the selection of maps and familiar progression. Zombies returned as well, though the mode leaned on simplified mechanics and storytelling, leaving longtime fans underwhelmed.
19. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
- Release Date: October 28, 2022
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Despite becoming the fastest-selling Call of Duty of all time, Modern Warfare II was a critical misfire. Its reputation will forever be tarnished by the poorly executed post-launch content, the bloated weapon attachment system, and the outright disaster that was Warzone 2.0. It also opened the floodgates to abhorrent crossover cosmetics, which became one of the biggest complaints levied against the franchise. So, if you’re mad about Nicki Minaj being in your mil-sim shooter, this is where it all started.
The only real saving grace was the campaign, which offered enjoyable set-pieces and grounded combat, though it never quite reached the heights of the 2019 reboot.
20. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
- Release Date: November 10, 2023
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
You know, for a rushed DLC to MWII that was haphazardly transformed into a full-priced game, Modern Warfare III (Review) wasn’t that bad. The campaign was awful, there’s no denying that, but the multiplayer is probably the best we’ve seen in the past five years. It offered solid gameplay paired with a memorable set of maps and some truly impressive post-launch content. From weekly challenges to Aftermarket Parts, MWIII always provided something to keep coming back to, and the same cannot be said for its predecessor.
21. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
- Release Date: October 25, 2024
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Black Ops 6 was the first entry of the franchise’s ‘Game Pass era,’ and it’s an interesting case of potential being let down by post-launch support. The run-up to BO6’s launch was filled with excitement, thanks in part to the excellent ‘The Truth Lies’ marketing campaign, and its arrival was even marked by roars of “Call of Duty is back.” However, it took just one month for the game to start fading into obscurity.
There are several reasons for this decline, including an influx of cheaters, which even turned content creators away from the game. But the biggest by far was lackluster post-launch content. While the new weapons were fine and the Zombies content was actually good, the new maps just failed to hit the mark entirely. This included remasters as well, including a redesign of W.M.D., but without the snow that made it charming in the first place.
Mechanically, BO6 saw the debut of the omnimovement system, which didn’t move the needle as much as fans expected it to. What did impress was the campaign featuring some of the most creative Call of Duty missions ever designed. It had you busting open Saddam Hussein’s palace, hallucinating in a Zombies-inspired covert facility, and executing a stylish casino heist, among other over-the-top shenanigans.
22. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
- Release Date: November 14, 2025
- Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Black Ops 7 picks up a decade on from BO2, and sees the return of David Mason as the lead protagonist. The JSOC Commander and his team of operatives are called into action to investigate the potential return of Raul Menendez, who is threatening to “burn down the world.” Also involved in this investigation is a tech corp named ‘The Guild,’ which is an offshoot of the Avalon-based weapons trafficking group from Black Ops 6.
The game has been dubbed as the ‘biggest Black Ops’ ever, with the devs promising a boat-load of post-launch support, alongside the 18 multiplayer maps available at launch.
Which is your favorite Call of Duty game on this list? Be sure to let us know in the comments.
