After the incredible fan response and hype for the recently released Call of Duty: Warzone, fans and writers alike have been picking apart the brand new battle royale entry in the Call of Duty franchise.
It's certainly been a hit, but the franchise as a whole has always been a polarizing entity in the gaming industry. With Warzone currently creating a big stir in the battle royale fandom, it seems like a good opportunity to take a step back and look at what’s come before, good and bad. With that in mind, we are going to e𒀰xamine some of the best and worst entries in the༺ franchise's history.
Updated by Derek Draven, April 2nd, 2020: As mentioned in the updated introduction, Call of Duty has expanded the scope of its offerings since the original iteration of this article - namely with Warzone. Likewise, the scope of this article needed to be expanded to account for its latest entries, as well as a few that didn't make the cut originally.
15 BE🐭ST: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Trying to live up to the expectations of the first Modern Warfare game is a lot for any developer, and yet Infinity Ward managed to soar well past the bar they had set for themselves with the follow-up, Modern Warfare 2.
Featuring a story filled with betrayal, plot twists and one of the most infamous levels in all of gaming (No Russian), Modern Warfare 2 took the Hollywood touch out of t๊he franchise for the first time, and played up the ugliness of foreign policy and conflic𒆙t.
14 ౠ ♑ WORST: Call Of Duty: WWII
In 2017, Call of Duty went back to WWII in the hopes of revitalizing interest in the franchise, with a 🍒new graphics✃ engine to re-sell the conflict to a new generation of players.
Unfortunately, it didn't🃏 go as planned. History buffs were puzzled by massive liberties taken with the historical source material, and th🤪e lack of any real innovation didn't sit well with gamers who were hoping to see the series grow within the WWII space.
13 BওEST: Call Of Duty: Black Ops
One of the better games of the franchise was Call of Duty: Black Ops, which took players into the secretive Cold War era. The game takes place twenty years after the events of COD: World At War.
Themes of espionage and mind control drive forward the spy thriller plot of the game, which began a successful run of titles in the Black Ops series. It’s easily one of the 🐻fandom’s favorite games.
12 WORST: Call of 🌠Duty: Black Ops III 🧔
The third in the series suffered quite a hit. Fans and critics noted that developer Treyarch had essentially turned Call of Duty into a cookie-cut🌠ter franchise with little in the way of growth or develop๊ment.
Where Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare injected new life into the franchise, Black Ops III preferred to simply go through the motions. Tre🌱yarch's abysmal Twitter campaign involving a fictional terrorist attac♔k in Singapore didn't help matters much. Definitely a misstep.
11 ♒ 🧸 BEST: Call of Duty 2
COD 2 wasted no time capitalizing on the success of the seminal original. It took everything gamers loved about the squad-ba🌟sed approach to WWII combat, and drove the story even farther.
Multiple plot-lines focused on the war through the eyes of three individual military𝕴 campaigns, all driven by an updated IW 2.0 graphics engine which allowed for greater expansion of combat gameplay.
10 WORST: Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare 𒐪
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare failed to live up to the majority🙈 of fans expectations. The franchise took gamers on a mission to stop a war-fueled regime from Mars, and protect the colonies across the solar system from a new enemy.
The use of robotic soldiers, space travel and sci-fi weaponry seemed entertaining, but failed to add 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:anything new to the gameplay. Fans weren't impressed.
9 BEST: Call Of Duty: Adva♓nced Warfare
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare took the franchise into the future, blending gritty realism with plausible technological advancements in wea🧔ponry that we may yet see enter the real-world battlefield enviro🔜nment.
The story f🌄eels more intimate as the player sees the rise of corporate war machines and single individuals who must end the globalization of war profiteering. It’s a reality many fear and hope they can avoid.
8 🐲 WORST: Call of Duty: Black Ops II ๊
The Black Ops series got off to a good start, but it began showing wear around the edges in the sequel, which many critics and fans felt had a confusing story that was too hard to follow. Criticism was also heaped o꧃n game elements such as A.I., and a branching storyline with an anti-climatic end.
It was still fun to play, but Black Ops II was the first sign that Treyarch was ✨beginning to get bogged down by the monster franchise it had created.
7 ▨ BEST: Call Of Duty: World At War
World At War was the first stand-alone COD title to showcase the Pacific campaign of WWII. This added a new narrative ܫdynamic to the mix that players had never before experienced.
It was a smash hit with critics and gamers who loved the new direction, enhanced gameplay mechanics, and the brand new Zombies mode. It would also lay the narrative groundwork for the Black Ops series of games which followed afterward.
6 ꦦ WORST: Call Of Duty 3
By the time Call Of Duty 2 had wrapped, the WWII setting was beginning to wear out its welcome. Nevertheless, in 2006, Call Of Duty 3 hit the 🐭PlayStation 2 and the Xbox 360 to continue the story.
While not the worst in the series, many gamers had become bored of the formula and were clamoring for something more. That would come exactly one year later when Modern Warfare hit the scene.