Paying full price for Call of Duty stings when the campaign feels unfinished and multiplayer sends you straight back to an older favorite. From Black Ops: Declassified’s handheld disappointment to Black Ops 7’s divisive campaign, these ten entries gave fans plenty to complain about—and occasionally a good reason to skip the next release. | © Activision Blizzard
Open Combat Missions promised freedom, but Modern Warfare III regularly traded carefully staged action for scavenging equipment and ticking off objectives. That approach left its short campaign struggling to give Makarov’s return any momentum. Multiplayer’s refurbished classics and faster movement offered stronger reasons to stay, though, and did make up for an underwhelming campaign. | © Sledgehammer Games
Want a particular attachment? Please complete your homework with an entirely different gun first. Modern Warfare II’s interconnected unlock system could turn personalizing a favorite weapon into an administrative assignment, while timed perks delayed access to parts of your loadout. The shooting itself had wonderful weight, which made all that surrounding friction harder to forgive: an expensive restaurant serving dinner through a vending machine. | © Infinity Ward
Stonehaven makes a lovely argument for Scottish tourism and a shakier one for Call of Duty map design. Ghosts stretched its multiplayer across sprawling spaces where searching for a fight could outlast the actual exchange of bullets. Extinction’s cooperative alien hunting supplied a welcome change of pace, but the main attraction too often left you sprinting toward action that happened somewhere else. Still, at least the SnD was goated. | © Infinity Ward
Getting through occupied France is difficult enough without a squadmate getting stuck and refusing to trigger the next scene. Call of Duty 3’s campaign could trip over its own scripting, interrupting otherwise convincing battlefield chaos. Button-mashing struggles with enemy soldiers added activity without much depth, leaving a sequel that too often confused making the player press more buttons with giving them more control. | © Treyarch
Vanguard assembled an international squad of wartime specialists, then spent much of its campaign explaining their résumés through flashbacks. The team adventure kept waiting for its team to get going. Zombies had an even rougher introduction: Der Anfang’s repeated objectives replaced the familiar round-based format at launch, and solo players couldn’t even pause. Apparently, fighting the undead required scheduling your bathroom breaks. | © Sledgehammer Games
Black Ops 7 felt so iterative and dull; it was just Black Ops 6 part 2 with slightly better maps, but that really isn't saying much. Playing with friends could make the absurdity entertaining, and wall bouncing was fun, but this will be remembered in the future as one of the most forgettable CoD's we've had. | © Treyarch / Raven Software
By the time Infinite Warfare came around, we had all had enough of jetpacks, and initial reactions to the trailer proved it. Perhaps IW were never the studio for this kind of space-age title? It was a good year for the competitive scene, at least. | © Infinity Ward
The Vita had two analog sticks; Declassified supplied remarkably little worth aiming at. Its campaign reduced Black Ops to brief, disconnected operations, then stretched their lifespan by omitting mid-mission checkpoints. Death meant repeating content that was barely interesting the first time. Unreliable enemy behavior and troubled multiplayer completed the disappointment, turning the promise of pocket-sized Call of Duty into a very portable frustration. | © Nihilistic Software
Call of Duty fans can argue about a single map for a decade, but defending an entire bad game takes real commitment. Rushed campaigns, frustrating multiplayer decisions, and tired ideas have all tested that loyalty. The worst Call of Duty games leave you wondering how a series built around landing every shot managed to miss this badly.
