Fifteen years ago, I was in Chernobyl under the lead of Captain MacMillan...
This is one of the true GOAT CoDs that everyone has in their own personal S-Tier. Of course, for many that's because of the multiplayer and the zombies, but the campaign was still strong enough to just about make it onto this list.
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The "Press F to pay respects" prompt was hugely misjudged, but outside that one giant blunder, WWII actually had a great campaign, and it still holds up. You can probably still remember the incredible D-Day landing intro, which isn't quite Saving Private Ryan, but was still very impressive for a CoD campaign.
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IW was the wrong CoD for 2016. Nobody at the time wanted another futuristic game, and that was reflected in the record-breaking amount of downvotes the reveal trailer received, but the campaign deserves respect. The destructive, apocalyptic feel of a mission like the Battle of Geneva honestly feels like something from the golden years of Battlefield.
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MW2019 is definitely the most controversial CoD game of all time, with some holding it up as a savior of the franchise and others bemoaning it as the death of CoD. But I don't want to get into the weeds of that debate here, it largely centers around multiplayer anyway. What I think we can all agree on is that it had a great campaign.
It really slowed the tempo down and felt like more of a sneaky spec-ops movie than a Michael Bay affair. And while this won't work on some, it was excellent for me. At this point, having played CoD for over twenty years, I don't need endless waves of grunts to kill. I would much rather the tense and gritty "realism" of a mission like Clean House.
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We now know that Kevin Spacey is... problematic at best, and I won't be praising AW for getting this actor on board, but the fact they spent so much on such a high-profile actor was testament to how much SHG cared about the story of their first game as lead studio. And that's reflected in how surprisingly strong the writing is and the rest of the VO performances.
Also, AW is worthy of praise for stringing together a somewhat coherent narrative based on a story set in 2054. The future will almost certainly not look like it does in AW, but they did a great job of showing how modern day tensions might evolve.
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Many of us now think of CoD 4 as the birth of the modern franchise we know and love, with the first three games existing in a kind of pre-history. There was definitely a shift in emphasis from single to multiplayer with CoD 4, so this viewpoint makes sense. But when it comes to ranking purely campaigns, it would be crazy to disregard the early CoDs.
And when you're looking at the early Call of Duty games, CoD 2 easily stands out as the best. The campaign was divided into three acts, with you playing first as a Russian, then a Brit, and finally as an American, and all three of these acts had a distinct and engaging feel.
You also have to remember that at the time, this campaign felt light years ahead of its contemporaries, and I say that as a Medal of Honor-stan whose favorite game was Rising Sun when CoD 2 released.
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Although the time period chosen for Black Ops was seen as a strange choice at the time, Treyarch did an excellent job using special operations conflict to create a campaign set during the Cold War. It was also the first time that CoD had presented a campaign in a more complex way than merely a chronological series of events, and the flashback meta-plot really tied in with the game's themes of espionage, intelligence agencies, and wild new technologies.
For some the campaign will be even higher than an impressive fourth place, but for me the game is slightly held back by the lack of a sniper mission.
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CoD 4 has the best single mission in the entire franchise. Say it with me now, All Ghillied Up. This was an incredibly well-designed mission that I'm sure many of you still remember, from taking synchronized shots with MacMillan, to lying in the long grass as a patrol of soldiers walked right past. Yep, hearing "50,000 people used to live here" still sends a shiver down my spine.
But, and this next part will be controversial, there are also a few generic, shooting-gallery style missions in the game as well. And the story is just okay.
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Modern Warfare 2 has one of the best stories and definitely the best twist in the franchise, and for many, it could easily have taken the number one spot in this ranking. The invasion of America was inspired, and you really got a sense of making a desperate, last stand, while fighting through suburbia.
Of course, we also have to mention the infamous "No Russian", which remains probably the most controversial mission in franchise history. Looking back it's insane to think they included this, and it was probably a step too far, but it definitely helped set Makarov up as a great villain.
I only have one real criticism. The sniper mission, Contingency, was much weaker than its counterparts from the previous two games, All Ghillied Up and Vendetta.
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Yes, World at War, the most underrated title in the franchise, has the best campaign. From the grim interrogation scene in Semper Fi right up until the heart bounding ending of Downfall, with the Soviet Union's anthem blaring, this campaign does not miss. An incredible story, with incredible set-pieces, and an incredible host of heroes and villains.
It's also worth remembering that this is the only CoD with a campaign that you could play co-op besides Black Ops 3, which although less relevant now, was massive during the heyday of splitscreen. And if you reached the end of the game with a friend, then watched the entire credits, you went straight into Nazi Zombies, which was how the iconic mode was first introduced. No CoD will ever beat that as an outro.
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99% of modern CoD fans buy the game for multiplayer (understandable given the quality of campaigns we get nowadays), but we have had some great campaigns over the years. Here are the ten best campaigns in the history of Call of Duty, at least in my opinion.
