Our great ranking of all Call of Duty games.

Hard to believe, but we’ve been balling our way through Call of Duty’s battlefields and level hoses for almost 20 years. Along with Fifa, the CoD series is one of the few remaining brands still released on an annual basis – with mixed results. Some of the best Call of Dutys have shaped the shooter genre foreverothers merely warmed up trends.

But to separate these microwave CoDs from the gourmet masterpieces, you have us. The editors put their heads together and present you with a personal ranking of the best Call of Dutys in our eyes.

And because “personal” is spelled with a capital “P” here, we’re breaking away from our own GameStar ratings and deciding anew from today’s perspective: Which Call of Duty is now the best?

18th Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Dimitry Halley: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is the Assassin’s Creed Syndicate of the CoD series. Actually, not such a bad game, but it represents everything that bothered fans about the state of their favorite series at the time. A hare-brained science fiction campaign, unimaginative hose-balling and an uninspired multiplayer with unnecessary wallrun and thrust-jump extravaganza. What passed for a fresh approach two years earlier had long since passed its zenith here.

Even Game of Thrones star Kit Harington as the campaign villain couldn’t save that. What’s more, at the time the highly coveted remaster of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was sold exclusively in conjunction with the Deluxe Edition of Infinite Warfare! Many fans interpreted this as a desperate rescue attempt on Activision’s part. But Infinite Warfare still failed.

17 Call of Duty 3

Christian SchneiderWhen it comes to Call of Duty 3, I readily admit that this part is not a highlight of the series – soberly considered. But soberly you rarely look at games, especially if you are not an editor at a game magazine for a long time and I wasn’t in 2006. Instead, I was the proud owner of my first self-bought game console, the Xbox 360, and there, after Call of Duty 2, was Call of Duty 3 – and God, did it look great!

At least by the standards of the time.There were vehicle levels, big battles, cutscenes and lots of continuous action. And that was enough for me at that time. Many others were already fed up with the world war setting at that point, the series was still about to make its most important contribution to the shooter genre. But of course I had no idea how Modern Warfare would blow me away shortly after Call of Duty 3.

16th Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Release: November 2014 | Platform: PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One/360 | Score: 79 | Developer: Sledgehammer

Heiko Blade: As a self-confessed shooter noob, I played through exactly three Call of Duty caps. The ones from Modern Warfare 1 and 2, to have a say at the time. And the one of Advanced Warfare. Of all things! Why actually Advanced Warfare, although many other campaigns are so much better, at least according to the colleagues? Well, for one thing, because of Kevin Spacey. Back then – years before all the unpleasant revelations about Spacey – I watched House of Cards with great pleasure and found it quite appealing to officially kick Kevin’s butt.

And to this day, it’s quite impressive how the Hollywood actor was integrated into the campaign, as harebrained as it was told.Secondly, I like exosuits. Already in Crysis I found it super to overpower my opponents not only with force of arms, but also with the superpowers of my suit.

Admittedly, I can only remember the missions of Advanced Warfare in fragments. Something about jumping over buses, ice diving, glider flying and lots of explosions. But I do remember that I could jump meters into the air, run up walls and shoot grappling hooks. That was kind of cool! Advanced Warfare is certainly not the most gourmet menu in Call of Duty history. But sometimes even fast food tastes good.

15th Call of Duty: Ghosts

Dimitry Halley: I love the campaign of Call of Duty: Ghosts. So, now you can cross me off the birthday list. I stand by it. Ghosts is a brute staged spec ops actioner with some very cool locations. Hey, the story starts on a shattering space station! Dog Riley I immediately took to my heart and in general I love good modern-military popcorn. That’s exactly what Ghosts is. No more, no less.

Where I agree with the critics, though: The multiplayer misses the mark big time. For a Call of Duty with its super fast infantry battles, the maps turn out way too big. The lowest point is the castle map, where I spend ages looking for enemies. In addition, the multiplayer lacked grandiose new ideas, so Ghosts was quickly forgotten where it counts (in multiplayer).

14th Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War

Release: November 2020 | Platform: PC, PS5/4, Xbox One, Series X/S | Score: 80 | Developer: Treyarch, Raven

Phil Elsner: When it comes to story, Cold War is right up there with the rest: Stealth missions with puzzle passages, exciting dialogues, different solutions and a headquarters with sidequests made this part so much more than the usual baller. The agent feeling was then rounded off with this perfect 80s soundtrack, simply wonderful. If only the story had been longer than five hours, and the multiplayer had been cut altogether!

Because after the innovations of Modern Warfare 2019, Cold War felt like a step backwards: Features were cut or dumbed down, animations and textures were no longer up to snuff, and the map selection was manageable. In addition, the outdated Black Ops engine later caused masses of problems with the Warzone integration. It’s obvious that Treyarch was caught between the Black Ops legacy, an outdated engine and a too tight release schedule.

13 Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Release: October 2018 | Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One | Score: 87 | Developer: Treyarch

Dimitry Halley: Black Ops 4 is a specialist. And not just because you play special er specialists in multiplayer, but because there’s no single player at all. The 2018 Call of Duty puts all its eggs in one basket: to wow people with its multiplayer. And it succeeds pretty well.

Without wall-running jumps and with extra life energy, matches play smoother, more tactical, better. For many Modern Warfare skeptics, Blops 4 remains the better game: Instead of camping, you win through classic CoD virtues – the right Streaks, the right Aim, the right Loadout.

But Black Ops 4’s big draw is its Battle Royale. For the first time in the series, Call of Duty offers a gigantic Battle Royale, modeled on PUBG, which at the time only failed because it cost more than the competition. Activision then corrected this mistake with Modern Warfare and its Free2Play warzone.