Ranking Call of Duty Campaigns

A month or so ago, Call of Duty released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.

It was very expensive, and it has not been liked, having a Metacritic score of 56.

That’s really bad!

It’s being considered the worst Call of Duty campaign there is.

But is it?

I’ve done a tier list of the Call of Duty games, but never ranked the campaigns alone.

So let’s find out.

Doesn’t Have A Campaign: Black Ops 4

Can’t really rank it if it doesn’t have one, eh?

Have Not Played: The First 3 Call of Duty’s

I hadn’t played them when I made the tier list, and I still haven’t.

Look, this ain’t my real job. I’m not made of time.

16. Black Ops III

There are so many things wrong with this campaign that I’m not sure where to begin.

It’s repetitive, it’s surprise twist is that “ohhh you were dead the whole time!” and it’s a shameless cash grab in the name, as it mentions previous Black Ops games once.

Absolutely garbage.

To this day, the only Call of Duty I couldn’t bring myself to finish.

15. Vanguard

There is something admirable about trying something new.

In fact, we’ll get to some of those in a bit.

But if you’re going to try something new, you just simply have to make it better.

The writing is terrible. The missions in the campaign don’t actually move the plot forward, but rather gives flashbacks of these characters I do not care about, and it doesn’t help me care about them at all.

Add in the fact that it has mocking tones to the deadliest conflict in human history, and you have yourself one really bad campaign.

14. Modern Warfare III

And here we are. The latest addition to Call of Duty campaigns.

There are a couple of memorable missions.

In fact, the memorable missions are the only ones that are ACTUALLY missions, and not Warzone wrapped up to look like a mission.

That’s the worst thing I can say about this campaign. It’s lazy.

The mission designs are lazy. The plot is lazy, as Makarov, the villain, attempts to do something, and then the next mission is the team stopping it.

And it’s like that the entire game until the last mission, where Makarov does something and the game just ends. Right then and there.

Any good will of the new Modern Warfare series is long gone.

13. Advanced Warfare

This game was actually not as bad as people originally thought, but it did have clear flaws.

One was the futuristic setting, which I was far from a fan of.

The other was the villain, played by Kevin Spacey, who was so very obviously a villain.

When it was revealed that he was the bad guy, it really wasn’t much of a shocker. It did not have that added punch to make it shocking.

But hey, it wasn’t so bad.

12. Infinite Warfare

Infinite Warfare is the exact same as Advanced Warfare, except Kit Harrington being the villain WAS a shocker.

Plus, the game was absolutely beautiful to look at, even if I was super sick of the futuristic settings and wanted Call of Duty to go back to boots on the ground.

11. Ghosts

This is an example of trying something new and it working.

Sort of.

In “Ghosts,” America is no longer the dominant power, and a special team of military members are tasked with regaining the independence of the country.

On plot alone, it sounds great!

On execution? It lacks something.

There’s no memorable characters (other than Riley the dog, of course) and there are no memorable missions.

It was a good idea and that’s pretty much it.

10. WWII

After Infinite Warfare, COD went back to boots on the ground, and they went back to their bread and butter with World War II.

And World War II was a good campaign.

Not only did it treat the war with the respect it deserves, but it added having to get ammo and health from your squad mates, rather than having regenerative health.

My only complaint with the campaign is that it feels a little bit too “movie” like.

The heroic deaths. The mean NCO leading the squad. The soldier who is wounded refusing to leave the front lines.

But hey, if those are the only complaints, that’s fine with me.

9. Modern Warfare II

Modern Warfare II not only added new great characters like Alejandro, but it built off the great campaign of Modern Warfare 2019.

The missions were fantastic. The performances are great. And while I didn’t like it, I do appreciate the new crafting method they added to certain missions.

I can understand that even if it’s not my cup of tea, people did enjoy it.

That doesn’t mean it was perfect, though.

Modern Warfare 2 from 2009 had iconic moments in the story and with betrayal, but this time around the game decided to try and create the same iconic moments.

But when a general betrays you once and is in the game a second time and betrays you again? It doesn’t feel like a shock. It feels like needless fan service to simply throw the old fans a bone instead of creating something new.

Plus, there were two villains in MW2 from 2009, just like there are two in this one.

But neither of them are memorable. At all.

8. Modern Warfare 3

The last of the original Modern Warfare trilogy finds itself at 9, and I have a feeling that’s going to upset people.

But honestly? This campaign wouldn’t hit the same without the name “Modern Warfare” on it.

There are countless memorable moments, such as the death of Soap, but the game just feels like Modern Warfare 2 with less excitement and enjoyment.

But to be fair, the fact that this is 8th is a great nod to Call of Duty, because this is still a really good campaign.

7. Modern Warfare 2019

The first installment of the new Modern Warfare series was absolutely excellent.

The stealth missions are some of the best in the series, and it really felt like a return to form for the series.

It even showed the true brutality of war, including war crimes and torture scenes, which unfortunately exist still today.

But they leaned on that a little bit too much, and I’m sorry but I still just can’t get over the little kid mission where these under 10 year olds avoid the Russian army without ever having held a gun.

It just felt so out of place.

But that’s a small complaint for a great game.

6. Black Ops 2

How do you make a great campaign?

Create iconic characters, have an excellent villain, and a quality ending.

Black Ops 2 has all of those, including multiple endings depending on multiple paths in gameplay, and even bringing back old iconic characters.

The only true downside is the fact that to get the best possible ending, you have to grind out the Strike Missions.

And those are so boring that I just refuse to do so, knowing it means I won’t get the best possible ending.

If you’re going to add mid game subplots, make them good.

Again, we’ll get to that a little later.

5. Modern Warfare 2

Hooo man. People might get mad at this one.

And I don’t blame them! To be honest, when I thought of this idea and plotted it out, I as pretty mad by it too!

After call, this is the game that made Call of Duty explode.

The story is amazing. The characters are fantastic. The plot twist I mentioned earlier of Sheppard being a villain led to me profusely swearing in front of my mother for the first time ever. That’s how shocking it was.

Plus, the United States being invaded by a foreign army was only done in movies, not in games. Those missions were amazing too.

So why is it 5th?

Because, this was the game that made Call of Duty explode.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that Call of Duty has jumped the shark, from being a war game to being a superhero movie.

In mission 4, you take on an entire army basically by yourself.

In the United States missions, your character is tasked to do essentially everything.

It’s still easily one of the best campaigns I have ever played, but I can’t find myself to put it above the remaining 4.

4. Black Ops: Cold War

Cold War took the original Black Ops method of trying to stop communist leaders from ending the world as we know it.

I don’t know. Seems a little lazy to just copy an idea from a decade prior, right?

But that’s the thing. You don’t realize that they have literally copied the idea.

And that is a high compliment.

At the end of the game, it’s revealed that the character you play as was a former Soviet agent who was brainwashed by the CIA to help them stop the Soviets, just like the Soviets brainwashed you to end America in the original Black Ops.

But you still somehow never see it coming until it happens. And then the game gives you multiple endings just like Black Ops 2, where you can either save Europe, or rejoin the Soviets and destroy it.

The game even has mid game missions like Black Ops 2, except these ones were good and even had puzzles that needed to be completed before you could even do the missions.

Cold War did not fully improve on Black Ops, but it improved on Black Ops 2, and the end result was a super fun campaign.

3. Black Ops

I already discussed above the twist in Black Ops, how you were brainwashed by the Soviets and are trying to be switched back by the U.S. to stop communist leaders, but that doesn’t do it justice.

I can not describe to you the reaction I had when I figured out the twist to this game. How your character, Alex Mason, has been working with a man who has been dead for years.

It took the Call of Duty campaigns from before it, with twists and iconic characters, and added their own, 1960s MK-Ultra style twist to it.

It was also the first Call of Duty with a vocal protagonist instead of a silent one, and you can feel through the cutscenes and missions how hard this interrogation and brainwashing is on Mason.

It adds a significant piece to the story that I didn’t realize was missing.

2. World At War

This game is not fun to play.

That is the highest compliment I can give it.

World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history.

Throughout this game, you are ambushed by hidden Japanese soldiers. You are pushing towards Germany with the Soviet Army, while other Soviet soldiers around you show no mercy and kill Nazi prisoners.

You witness countless deaths of your brothers and your squad mates.

The music is dark, eerie, and uncomfortable.

This game is not fun to play.

And that right there makes it the perfect World War II game.

1. Modern Warfare

The campaign that built a dynasty.

Modern Warfare is the best Call of Duty campaign, because it is the campaign that fits real life the most.

Civil war in Russia leads to unrest in the nation that the British special forces must attend to.

Unrest in the Middle East leads to a dictatorship that the American forces must attend to.

The plot feels real, partially because it is real.

A YouTuber named Raycevick made a brilliant video about this game, but the one big takeaway from it was how real it felt.

You aren’t a one man army, but rather one man within an army.

You are as reliant on your squad mates as they are on you.

The only superhero moment in the game is when you and your captain are the only two soldiers in Chernobyl, but even those missions make sense in the full realm of the game as you need to use stealth to get around, while needing to retreat and use cunning methods to escape this army.

The game even ends in a realistic way, as the game ends with a news broadcast saying everything you did was covered up by the public, never to be fully known.

Even today, 16 years after the game was released, it easily feels like the most realistic campaign there is.

And that is why, until proven otherwise, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is not only the gold standard for campaigns, but the gold standard for Call of Duty in general.