From the battlefields of World War II to outer space – over the past two decades, Call of Duty has taken us to completely different places and eras in 17 campaigns. Sometimes we experienced gripping stories that we can instantly recall even many years later. And sometimes, Advanced Warfare was the result.

Of course, there’s the one big question: Which Call of Duty had the best campaign – and why? We have voted across the GameStar editorial team, hotly debated and finally created our great ranking of all solo campaigns – so how good multiplayer and Co. were is irrelevant at this point. You can find the best overall CoD package here:

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The best Call of Dutys: all 18 games in the top ranking

Of course, we are also very curious about your opinion. Feel free to post any disagreement or approval in the comments. Reload your weapons and pack your stims, let’s go!

17 Call of Duty 3

PLUS Archive

12:51

Call of Duty – Video Special: The History

Steffi Schlottag: Call of Duty 3 never made it to the PC – and honestly, it wasn’t that big of a loss. Unless you have nostalgic memories of rainy afternoons on the couch, controller in hand, maybe with your best friend next to it. Of course, something like that can catapult any game to the top.

But the campaign (and CoD 3 as a whole) is not often found in the lower places of such rankings for nothing, and is gladly brought out by Treyarch critics. Apart from the graphics, little has changed compared to the predecessors, other titles in the series have staged the Second World War much more grippingly, and characters have also been more convincing in the past.

It was especially unfortunate that the story didn’t really hang together, but was split into individual episodes in which you control different soldiers on different fronts. At least the wind physics were interesting (or annoying), which could drive thick fog in front of your eyes.

16th Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

PLUS

27:36

How did CoD: Advanced Warfare happen? GameStar TV

Heiko Klinge: No, there’s no need for Hollywood stars in computer games. But when they do get involved, it makes me curious. Especially with a caliber like Kevin Spacey, who was a really big deal in the days of Advanced Warfare and years before the unpleasant revelations about his person thanks to House of Cards.

And yes, I was really up for kicking Francis Underwood’s – pardon – Jonathan Irons’ – butt. The differences between the House of Cards and Advanced Warfare roles were actually very small. Instead of a corrupt power-hungry politician, Spacey played a corrupt power-hungry head of a security company. The story was correspondingly predictable, although it was technically very impressive thanks to the many render sequences.

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Podcast: Shooters have forgotten how to surprise us – is that bad?

Advanced Warfare went down in gaming history not because of Spacey’s performance, but because of one keystroke: “Press F to Pay Respects.” Advanced Warfare presented this on-screen insert in all seriousness during a funeral scene, unintentionally providing the very finest meme material that endures to this day. Also an achievement.

From a purely gameplay point of view, the campaign was much less memorable. The exoskeleton, which was announced as a great innovation, could mostly only be used in predefined places, the levels reeled off the routine CoD standard world trip without really surprising. In this respect, I can understand the poor ranking in our campaign ranking, despite or even because of Kevin Spacey.

15 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

4:37

CoD: The best action scenes – nuclear explosions and collapsing landmarks

Peter Bathge: When you’ve had your fill of the bombast of what are ultimately always kind of the same CoD campaigns, you look for other ways to have fun. In Modern Warfare 3, one of the best ways for me to do that is to try to play my role correctly.

So I act like a real soldier, taking cover, keeping my AI colleagues safe, avoiding suicidal hussar storms – and what can I tell you, Modern Warfare 3 is actually a lot more fun for me this way than usual! Okay, in the end, this faux-tactics claim dissolves entirely when the game thrusts a tank suit and minigun into my hands, but until then, I can only recommend this slightly different way of playing CoD.

14 Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – The single player alone is already worth the purchase price!

Dimitry Halley: Nobody talks about it nowadays, but Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 really tried something with its campaign. The tubby levels were at least widened, as a sci-fi super soldier I got a set of gadgets, skills and co. and actually try different approaches. Yes. In a Call of Duty! And optionally even in co-op for up to four people.

Black Ops 3 also suffered from the usual sequel problem: After Advanced Warfare, there were just again a CoD in a science fiction setting with wallruns, thrustjumps and so on – a barrel that would finally overflow one year with Infinite Warfare.