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Having started out as just one of the many World War 2 shooters at the turn of the millennium, Call of Duty has turned into a true cultural juggernaut and one of the biggest entertainment properties of all time. As a consequence of this, there have been so many games in the franchise that it can be tough to keep track of all the CoD games.
We have decided to help you out by cutting through the chronology and listing all the Call of Duty games in order, both in terms of release dates and the time they take place in the franchise timeline. This served as a fascinating look at the ebb and flow of the gaming industry across the year, and it also offered us interesting insights into where the series may go next, including the potential next steps for Call of Duty esports.
Having started out as a World War 2-focused game, the Call of Duty name comes from the description given for awarding the Medal of Honor, namely “going above and beyond the call of duty.” A rather ironic factoid, in retrospect, considering that CoD was very much trying to dethrone the Steven Spielberg-associated Medal of Honor game franchise, which was also covering the exploits of Allied soldiers in World War 2. Looking back almost two and a half decades later, it is quite clear that they have completely succeeded in doing just that.
Read on to find out more, and, of course, to find out what you are looking for: the list of all the Call of Duty games in order.
It all began in 2003, under the auspices of Infinity Ward, establishing a formula that would become very familiar over the decades. Back in those days, the single-player campaign was the primary focus, with three segments featuring three different soldiers (one from Britain, one from the United States, and one from the Soviet Union), including classic set pieces like the Normandy landing and the Battle of Stalingrad. This game already featured a character called Captain Price, and he did serve as the blueprint for the iconic John who would follow, but, of course, they are not identical characters – in fact, he dies in the original game, even if he did return in the sequel.
With approximately 4.5 million copies sold, two expansions (United Offensive and the console-exclusive Finest Hour), and a series was born.
Introduced regenerating health and more cinematic visuals, Call of Duty 2 was the first big step forward towards the ever-more heavily scripted approach to solo campaigns. Its multiplayer outing was a significant improvement over the original game’s, selling nearly 6 million copies worldwide. A side-story called Big Red One followed later in the year for consoles.
This was the first CoD game where Treyarch took over the development process from Infinity Ward – at which point an agreement was made that they’d alternate between series entries, which was further expanded in 2010 with Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software in 2017 – and it was the only entry in the series that never got a PC release. This time, the campaign’s focus is narrower on the Battle of Normandy, with an American, British, Canadian, and Polish character serving as the protagonist for the 14-mission campaign. This game introduced quick-time events in the series. It marked a continued growth spurt for the franchise, with approximately 7.2 million units sold.
This game was a revolution in more ways than one, marking a sea change in the series and the general gaming world as well. On the single-player side of things, it shifted away from the waning World War 2 trend to a contemporary setting, introducing the beloved characters of Soap, Price, and Gaz.
It also significantly revamped the multiplayer experience, bringing along progression, perks, and killstreaks – elements which are all commonplace today. It is one of the best-selling shooter games of all time, with over 15 million copies sold.
World at War would mark the last time for almost a decade that CoD players would explore WWII vistas, this time with a focus on the Pacific and Eastern Fronts. These days, Treyarch’s second entry is best-known for introducing Zombies mode, which was then called Nazi Zombies. It was a bonus minigame that automatically launched the moment you finished the main campaign.
While the return to the World War 2 setting seemed somewhat disappointing after the revolutionary nature of Modern Warfare, this entry of the series still sold over 15 and a half million copies, making it a solid return for Activision.
While Treyarch led us back to World War 2, the folks at Infinity Ward cooked up another hugely influential game in the modern setting. While the campaign was short, it was an intense and memorable affair – most notably the controversial “No Russian” mission – and the game released to huge critical acclaim and commercial success, with estimates suggesting it broke the 25 million sales mark. The killstreak benefits introduced in multiplayer are a mainstay in the series now, with the bonus that is now known as M.O.A.B. (the mother of all bombs) first appearing in MW2 in the form of a tactical nuke.
The campaign also received a remaster in 2020 – which is not to be confused with the series reboot.
The very first Black Ops game is yet another legendary entry in the CoD series, its Cold War-era timeline and Vietnam War setting made it a unique story in the AAA games industry at the time. While its plotline served as a direct continuation from World at War, the story revolves around Soviet sleeper agents and a chemical weapon rather than an all-out war confrontation.
The game also significantly expanded on the Zombies minigame from Treyarch’s previous CoD title – and you could argue that this is where it truly became a mainstay for the series. Black Ops 1 was also the first appearance of the Gun Game mode in Call of Duty.
The game became the bestselling game of all time in the UK and USA by the end of 2010, doubling the earnings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1’s opening week.
The final installment of the original Modern Warfare trilogy, MW3 is the eighth Call of Duty game in order. Developed by Infinity Ward, with the assistance of Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software (after the departures of IW co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, who would go on to found Respawn Entertainment), the campaign sees the shock death of player character Soap and the eventual defeat and hanging of Makarov.
Survival, a new cooperative multiplayer mode that served as a variation on Zombies, was also introduced for the game. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold around 31 million units.
The second Black Ops game also broke new ground for the franchise by pushing the plot to the near future of 2025. (Yeah, about that.) Swapping back and forth between events in the 1980s and 2025, with the eventual start of a Second Cold War, it is the first campaign in the series with branching storylines and permanent death of player characters, as well as giving you the option to customize your loadout heading into a mission. In multiplayer terms, the Pick 10 class-building system is a longstanding legacy of the title. With just over 24 million copies sold, the game lagged behind the original and MW3 in terms of franchise sales.
Released concurrently with Black Ops 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified was a PlayStation Vita-exclusive title that greatly expanded on the story, taking place between the original Black Ops and its sequel. However, the game was very negatively received due to a serious lack of polish, poor enemy AI, and a poor multiplayer experience, making it the lowest-rated game in the series to date.
In retrospect, Ghost was a technological leap, but also perhaps the first misstep of the CoD franchise. It was the first game in the series to be released across two console generations (the seventh and the eighth, to be precise), and it is somewhat of a forgotten entry in the series. As the first standalone entry in the franchise (with Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare to come later), it struggled to find its footing with fans – but, then again, the Modern Warfare trilogy was a very tough act to follow.
When the big feature as a selling point is a dog companion that you can ultimately only really interact with a few times in the campaign missions, then, yeah, something is missing. That said, the engine change facilitated with this entry would make a huge difference later down the line – and the sci-fi elements of the plot would make a return in the two other standalone entries in the series that never quite sparked a continuation, with Ghosts capping out at “just” 19 million sales.
The first Call of Duty game in order to be exclusively developed by Sledgehammer Games, Advanced Warfare further leaned into a futuristic take on the CoD formula and gameplay. With exoskeletons, boost jumps, and cloaking, it’s as far a cry from the shores of Normandy as it gets. The game also did away with a traditional HUD, and lets you upgrade your character throughout the campaign. Black Ops 2’s Pick 10 was brought back as Pick 13 for Advanced Warfare for the multiplayer, with Exo Survivor and Exo Zombies serving as variations on the themes previously established by the franchise.
In the single-player campaign, the mocapped presence of Kevin Spacey as the antagonist, as well as Troy Baker’s run in the protagonist role, made headlines – but meme enthusiasts will all remember this game for the “Press F to pay respects” meme.
Advanced Warfare marked another reported 27% drop in sales from Ghosts, but it was still the United States’ top-selling retail game for the year of its release.
With a third full-time development studio in the mix, the cycle for each Call of Duty game had expanded to three years at this point. From this point onward, Treyarch exclusively stuck to the Black Ops formula, delivering a huge return to form for the franchise with their third game, one that remains a cult classic to this day among fans.
Bringing along a 4-player co‑op campaign, with the story set in 2065 that explores the impact of climate change and cybernetic enhancements, it was another bold attempt at telling a Call of Duty story and one that fell somewhat flat around the time of its release. Multiplayer, however – which was integrated with the main plot by unlocking audio logs of what are supposed to be simulated avatars of the various Specialists – along with a standalone Zombies “Nightmares” mode, made the game a massive success and one of the best-selling games of the entire eight generation of consoles, moving over 43 million copies in total.
The thirteenth Call of Duty game in order, Infinite Warfare was extremely controversial upon its announcement, since it marked the fifth game in a row for the series that set its setting in the far future, with zero-gravity environments, grappling hooks, and other extreme gameplay changes taking the experience further and further away from the boots-on-the-ground action that was the original CoD formula.
The backlash was so strong that Activision ultimately scrapped their attempts at turning Infinite Warfare into a subseries, seeing a massive drop in sales with approximately 13.5 million copies in total, missing the publisher’s sales expectations entirely.
Sledgehammer Games’ second standalone outing for CoD saw the series return to its roots with a revisit of World War 2, for the first time since 2008’s World at War. Focusing on Operation Overlord, it has a singular protagonist in the form of Private Ronald “Red” Daniels. In what serves as a notable highlight of how sensibilities over the depiction of World War 2 have changed over the decade and a half since the series’ inception, it features a darker than usual storyline that culminates in the Battle of Remagen and reaching the Berga concentration camp.
In multiplayer, players were randomly assigned to the Allied or Axis side, and the game courted controversy by allowing player expression with admittedly ahistoric Black and female German soldiers in multiplayer. While the single-player campaign does feature swastikas, the multiplayer mode does not. The game ended barely below the 20 million sales mark, a similar number to the original Modern Warfare a decade earlier.
Number fifteen in the Call of Duty games in order, Black Ops 4 was the first CoD without a solo campaign. It was also the title to introduce the Blackout battle royale mode, which served as a replacement for the campaign. The game also launched one month earlier than usual to avoid going up against Red Dead Redemption 2.
This decision, coupled with a heavy focus on microtransactions, led to negative reception and another relative failure in terms of sales. Black Ops 4 shipped approximately 14 million units. Activision specifically confirmed that the next game in the series would definitely include a solo campaign experience.
After failing to strike new ground with their futuristic games, Treyarch’s next Call of Duty game rebooted the Modern Warfare trilogy full reboot of the MW sub-series with a new engine. With child soldiers, the shooting of civilians, and white phosphorus included, the game harkened back to the No Russians controversy of old, and the story was generally seen as a heavy-handed attempt at building morally complex scenarios.
This was also the game that introduced Warzone as a battle royale update for Season 2 – as a free standalone update – which has become a strongly integrated element of the games since. With over 30 million copies sold, it marked a return to form for the series.
The seventeenth Call of Duty game in order and the fifth Black Ops game in the subseries as a whole, Black Ops Cold War was initially meant to be a collaborative effort between Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software, but due to many disagreements and conflicts between the studios, Treyarch was placed into the lead role later in the development process – and this was the point when the game became a part of the Black Ops line, which was not going to be the case originally.
Set in 1981, between the first two Black Ops games, the story revolves around the cat-and-mouse game between a CIA operative and a Soviet spy called Perseus, with Project MKUltra and nukes coming into play. The multiplayer component of the game was heavily criticized, but despite all the difficulties at play, the game ultimately sold 30 million copies by the end of 2024.
Once more, Sledgehammer Games was tasked with telling a World War 2 story for their Call of Duty game in order, but with its focus on the birth of special forces, it is tough to forgo the feeling that they also wanted to sprinkle a bit of Black Ops in there. At this point, many players and commentators felt like the franchise was stagnating somewhat, with little to offer in terms of gameplay or story innovations, either in the single-player or the multiplayer department, with the solo campaign’s straitjacketed nature sometimes directly compared to the very first game in the series.
While rumors suggest that Vanguard still managed to cross the 30-million sales mark despite the disappointing reviews and player reception, Activision did consider it a disappointment numbers-wise, citing the tired setting and a lack of innovation as the key reasons behind their evaluation.
A sequel to the 2019 reboot and the nineteenth Call of Duty game in order, Modern Warfare II proved beyond any and all doubt that nostalgia sells like nothing else. Continuing where the first reboot game left off, the story spins an entertaining yarn of Task Force 141’s exploits. The return of the Special Ops mode was a highlight of the experience for fans, and in the multiplayer component, the new modes of Prisoner Rescue and Knockout served as highlights alongside the DMZ mode’s addition to Warzone 2.0. Reports suggested that Activision was going to give an extra year for Treyarch’s next CoD game in order to develop so that they can fix recent disappointing sales outcomes, with a MWII expansion pack from Sledgehammer Games serving as the intended content piece to bridge the gap. Instead, they ultimately expanded it into a full-fledged sequel, which allowed players to use all their MWII content in MWIII.
MWII became the fastest-selling CoD game of all time, selling $800 million in just three days.
With the planned Advanced Warfare sequel long ago canned, and the development of Black Ops Cold War turning into a bit of an excrement show, Sledgehammer Games was initially tasked with developing an MWII expansion pack with the goal of giving Treyarch and Raven an extra year for Black Ops 6. It would have been the first time in decades without an annual full game release, but the project eventually turned into a standalone sequel, with reports suggesting intense crunch periods and burnout. A significant portion of the game was leaked from an internal alpha leak, with new features and perks becoming known way before the developers intended.
The rough development period was clear on the final results in terms of quality and reception, with the sales figures almost 40 percent down during the first three weeks of launch from MWII’s heady heights.
If Modern Warfare III suffered from a rushed development cycle, Black Ops 6 greatly benefited from an extra year, garnering great acclaim and strong sales alike and bringing along significant innovations. The “omnimovement,” or omnidirectional movement, served as the main highlight and a big change in how these mechanics previously worked in the game.
The campaign, with a Gulf War-era conspiracy storyline, the multiplayer experience, and Zombies mode all received positive feedback from reviewers and players alike, and it helped catapult the series to its largest-ever launch weekend and a massive increase in engagement. It also set the hype levels super high for Call of Duty Black Ops 7, which will be the twenty-second Call of Duty game in order.
At the time of writing, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is still in development. It is once again headed by Treyarch and Raven, and it marks a direct continuation of the Black Ops 2 plot, with the story set in 2035.
Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about Warzone. It’s just that if we included every Call of Duty game property here in the list above, you’d grow a beard by the time you would finish reading this article, so let us just drop the last important facet of the CoD universe here as a separate component: while Call of Duty have experienced with various F2P games over the years, only the variations of Warzone (the original in 2020 and its 2022 reboot) made a real mark, with growing integration with the mainline entries over the year playing a key part in Activision’s strategy. Call of Duty Mobile was shuttered a little more than a year after its release.
The full list of free-to-play Call of Duty games in order is as follows:
Another way to look at all the Call of Duty games in order is to sort them by the historical period that they take place in. While there are many overlaps and a few unclear elements, too, we can chart a fairly clean path through the over two decades’ worth of games.
No matter how you slice it, Call of Duty is one of the most influential video games in the history of the medium, and knowing how the Call of Duty games come in order offer you a great look at how the industry has changed across the two decades that it has played a huge part in it.
Introducing regenerating health and a cinematic focus early on, then pivoting to consoles and steadily focusing more on the multiplayer and live-service portion of the experience rather than a strong solo campaign, CoD has always been a tastemaker in the gaming scene and an important game in the esports world. At the time of writing, Black Ops 7 is right around the corner, and hype is at all-time highs; but every titan can be toppled, as we all well know, and it remains to be seen whether Call of Duty will remain among the great video game franchises for yet another decade.
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