Despite the ongoing success of Call of Duty, the series as a whole varies in quality. Some are incredibly forgettable (i.e. Call of Duty: Ghosts), while others are some of the best first-person shooter experiences in gaming. From campaigns and multiplayer to zombies galore, there is always something that fans gravitate towards, but which are the best to do it? At the end of the day, what you look forward to most from Call of Duty will influence your opinion, but here’s what we think are the top 10 best Call of Duty titles. Spoilers ahead!
10) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
The highly anticipated follow-up to one of the most beloved shooters of all time was never going to meet expectations — and it didn’t. The campaign, compared to the first two entries in the trilogy, was forgettable outside of the death of former protagonist Soap Mactavish. Multiplayer was great, but a step down from Modern Warfare 2. A lot of the same weapons returned but the maps weren’t as distinct as those in its predecessor game. Still, we put many hours into it just as we did for the games that came before it.
9) Call of Duty: WWII
Call of Duty: WWII doesn’t get enough love. It was a big step up graphically and it was the first Call of Duty in a while that kept our attention when it came to the multiplayer. There’s not much to specifically remember from the campaign, but it was overall enjoyable and worthy of a revisit. While many were underwhelmed by its multiplayer. we found it to be a breath of fresh air, with there being so many futuristic titles back-to-back-to-back-to-back before this title.
8) Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Black Ops III is forgettable when it comes to multiplayer and the campaign is absolutely bonkers to be in the world of Call of Duty, but Zombies is a smorgasbord of great content. It has great original maps that continue the zombie’s story as well as remakes of some of the beloved maps in the entire franchise, including Der Riese and Ascension — even if they aren’t the definitive versions of the maps. It’s just great that they are there in general. After a weaker suite of maps in Black Ops II, Black Ops III delivered and then some.
Related: The entire history of the Call of Duty: Black Ops series
7) Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Black Ops II is just a good package across the board. It had a good campaign that followed up the events of the Black Ops story well, a good multiplayer, and a good suite of zombie maps. Granted, none of these were better than compared to its predecessor, but it was a good respectable sequel.
6) Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Black Ops Cold War is our favorite Call of Duty in a long time. As a rebooted sequel of the original Black Ops, Alex Mason and Frank Woods were back, albeit not front and center. The story is short and sweet with memorable missions, especially infiltrating the KGB, which is arguably the best Call of Duty campaign mission in the past decade. There were some great callbacks to the original story as well, with rewarding callbacks that we usually don’t get from Call of Duty in recent memory.
Related: Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War throws back to bonkers gameplay and silly storytelling
5) Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
To this day, Advanced Warfare is the best feeling game in the series thanks to the Exo suit that is introduced in the campaign as well as implemented into the multiplayer. It feels so good to move around, even if it isn’t as natural as Titanfall. The campaign is fun for what it is, and Advanced Warfare is the first attempt at zombies from a developer who isn’t Treyarch. Advanced Warfare is one of the few campaigns with solid replay value simply because of its unique experience.
4) Call of Duty: World at War
World at War was able to perfect the World War II shooter. It brought a great campaign taking place during the era alongside a fantastic multiplayer experience that many fans at the time would compare to Modern Warfare. World at War was the last Call of Duty where the multiplayer had three default killstreaks. It’s nice to think about the simpler times when everyone was on an equal playing field. It was also World at War that introduced Zombies for the very first time — what started as a bonus after the credits eventually became fundamental for the future of Call of Duty titles.
3) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
It may be heresy to put Modern Warfare 2 anywhere but the number one spot — “It has the best Call of Duty multiplayer,” you might say, and you’re not wrong. Multiplayer was unbalanced to the nth degree, but this created a chaotic and fast Call of Duty experience that has never been replicated. On top of the multiplayer, the campaign is great with several memorable moments throughout. Modern Warfare 2 also introduced Spec Ops mode, which brought several fun co-op missions to boot. Also, of course, we can’t forget that incredible Hans Zimmer theme.
2) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
The first thing that must be said regarding Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is that this game was groundbreaking for first-person shooters. It modernized the genre to a point where developers still use it as a guide. It has one of, if not the best campaign in the series. Several incredible missions including Shock and Awe, All Ghillied Up, and One Shot One Kill with much more worth mentioning. The multiplayer, while not as good as Modern Warfare 2, was still fantastic. If we had to recommend a single Call of Duty game to play, it would be the original Modern Warfare, simply because of how much it holds up to this day with its story and mission structure. If you can get your hands on the remastered version of Modern Warfare, do yourself a service and play it.
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops is the complete package. It has everything: an incredible campaign, with fantastic multiplayer, and the best zombies have ever been.
A lot of this campaign is built as if it came out of an 80s action film in every best way possible. It has great action, story, and characters which can be said for very few Call of Duty games. Modern Warfare is known for Captain Price and Soap, but in Black Ops, you have Alex Mason, Frank Woods, Viktor Reznov, Bowman, and Agent Hudson. A small but intimate cast with genuinely compelling plot twists and character moments. One may think the campaign may have aged poorly over time, but it doesn’t after revisiting it recently.
Multiplayer had a lot riding on it because it was the follow-up to Modern Warfare 2, and while it did not meet those unrealistic expectations, the multiplayer was still a blast with plenty of memorable maps and weapons to compliment it.
Zombies was next level. Every map was fantastic, including Five, a map that takes place in the Pentagon where you can play as Kennedy or Nixon, of all people. The story of Zombies was still cohesive enough to understand without needing to watch YouTube videos, and the finale consisted of you going to the Moon to nuke Earth to try and get rid of all the zombies for good. The Zombies experience was as perfect as perfect can be, and still is if you go back and play it today.
Black Ops may not have broken any barriers for the FPS genre, but when it comes to Call of Duty as a series, it is the greatest culmination of everything that a Call of Duty fan could be looking for.
