History VideoGame / CallOfDuty

* HighTierScrappy: Plenty of examples in Multiplayer.
** In ''Call of Duty 4'', this was Frag 3x. The massive explosion radius and damage in that game led to massive amounts of grenade spam.
** In ''World at War'', it was the Bouncing Betties, but nothing compared to the MP40 on console, which did 50 damage and could one-shot with a headshot. Despite being a full auto pistol-caliber SMG.
** In ''Modern Warfare 2'', the UMP-45 could three shot players from unimaginable distances. Commando with a tactical knife was absurd (you could lunge over 7 meters to stab someone). The Akimbo Model 1887s could one shot players from an absurd range before they were nerfed. Stopping Power was also hated for screwing up the time to kill balance, but nothing was comparable to underbarrel grenade launchers. Their explosion radius and ease of use led them to be called "noob tubes", and there was an exploit with the One Man Army perk (a perk that allows you to change loadouts mid life) that allowed players to replenish their grenade launchers. Infinitely. And thanks to Infinity Ward abandoning the game thanks to a dispute with Activision, it was never fixed.
** ''Black Ops'' had the FAMAS, which could three shot kill while having an absurd rate of fire of 900 RPM. Almost every high tier lobby had someone using it.
** ''Modern Warfare 3'' had the Akimbo FMG-9s, which were extremely easy to use: just hold down the trigger and spray bullets and everything in front of you would die instantly. It did catch some nerfs, through.
** ''Black Ops II'' had all the SMGs be this, because of the small, linear maps that favored close range weapons. One particular offender was the MSMC, which had controllable recoil, good range and decent iron sights.
** Ghosts had the MSBS at the start of the games lifecycle for being able to kill nearly instantly with one burst at almost every range. After that got nerfed, the main scrappy of the game was the M27 IAR, which was essentially an assault rifle on a LMG trenchcoat. Not only it had the best iron sights in the game by far, it was easy as hell to use. Many players abused it using the Thermal Hybrid sight to still terror in entire lobbies thanks to the game's slow pace and massive open maps.
** Black Ops III was mostly balanced through all of it, although a lot of people complained about the specialists themselves having overpowered weapons that could flip an entire game by the virtue of simply waiting for their weapons or abilities to charge then using them at the right time.
** Infinite Warfare had the Synaptic rig, which had the ability to have improved thrusters and a return in time ability that essentially meant it was invencible in the air and could simply get away from a positioning mistake scot-free.

* {{Hitscan}}: All bullets. This leads to SniperPistol. [[ShortRangeShotgun The shotguns are very exempt from this]].

* ''Call of Duty: Roads to Victory'' (developed by Amaze Entertainment and released in 2007 for UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable as a spin-off of ''Call of Duty 3'')
* ''Call of Duty: World at War: Final Fronts'' (developed by Rebellion and released in 2008 as a reimagining of Treyarch's ''World at War'' for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2)[[index]]

** ''Finest Hour'' for UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 added the ability to heal teammates with medkits if they needed it, which is necessary because there's no GameplayAllyImmortality.

[[folder:'Roads to Victory]]

[[folder:''Roads to Victory]]

The series' publisher Creator/{{Activision}} uses a development cycle for the series to ensure that one game can come out each year while still giving enough time to developers to make the game good. There are three developer companies: Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games. Other studios such as Raven Software also helped with the series.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: ''World at War'' has Sgt. Sullivan [[spoiler:until the end of the second mission]], Cpl./Sgt. Roebuck, and Pvt. Polonsky. Roebuck and Polonsky are a special case in that [[spoiler:one of them will die at Shuri Castle, although the only difference is an achievement if Roebuck lives, and the player getting a promotion if he doesn't]].

* BloodierAndGorier: ''Modern Warfare'' was like this to the previous games, bumping the rating up to an M. ''World at War'' cranked up the gore, including dismemberment. And ''Black Ops'' is easily the most graphic and brutal ''Call of Duty'' yet.

* BookEnds: ''World at War'', the very last WWII ''Call of Duty'' game, ends the exact same way the original ''Call of Duty'' did; with the Russian assault on the Reichstag and raising the Russian flag over the roof of the seat of German government.

* BrokenFaceplate: One mission in ''Black Ops'' requires you to wear an NBC suit during a chemical attack. You're still fighting, though, and as you take damage, your faceshield will crack. While your regular health will regenerate normally, your faceshield won't, meaning that if you take too much damage in the entire sequence, you'll die from exposure to the chemical agent. [[spoiler:You'll get an achievement for making it through the sequence without dying, however.]]

* ColdSniper: Sergeant Reznov in ''World at War'' was a ColdSniper until just before Pvt. Petrenko meets him; wounds to his right hand mean that he can't handle a sniper rifle anymore, so he gives it to you and takes up a [=PPSh=]-41 submachine gun. He manages to maintain the general ''attitude'' of one though, until you've gotten the [[spoiler:solitary German sniper]], then he drops it for SergeantRock once you're performing overwatch for the Soviet counterattack and especially when you down the high value target, ''especially'' if you did so with a pistol for the "Gunslinger" Achievement.

** Exaggerated with Black Ops III's Realistic difficulty. Hell, the name of the achievement for beating the campaign on Realistic is [[spoiler:"No One Will Believe You"!]]

* NonCombatEXP: In the multiplayer, players have levels. They must gain XP to level up, which allows them access to new weapons. You mainly get XP through kills, but the game liberally dishes out XP for getting kills in special ways, such as revenge kills ("Payback!") or killing an enemy immediately after they killed a teammate ("Avenged!"). You can also get lots of bonus XP for certain achievements, like getting a certain number of headshots with a weapon, or using a perk a certain number of times. In objective-based gamemodes you also will get XP for capturing objectives.

** The ''Modern Warfare'' games have a few missions where your superior will encourage you to sneak past enemies or at least use silenced weapons on them. It's not required, though, and while you'll get mobbed it is possible to fight your way out. Said superior will chew you out, though. Plus, the missions "All Ghillied Up" and "Cliffhanger" have achievements for not being spotted.

** Also in ''Black Ops'''s intel files, there's a reference to [[Film/ApocalypseNow a voyage up the Nung river]] to eliminate a rogue SF colonel. The achievement for that level is "Never get off the boat".

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cod_logo.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350: No one fights alone.]]

* CoolGuns: Kind of goes without saying.

* TheForeignSubtitle: ''3'' gained the subtitle ''En marche vers Paris'' ("Road to Paris") in France.

[[folder:''Call of Duty 3'' and ''Roads to Victory'']]
* ActionGirl: The Soviets have female combat infantry.

* TheForeignSubtitle: ''3'' gained the subtitle ''En marche vers Paris'' ("Road to Paris") in France.
* ParachuteInATree: In the ''Call of Duty 3'', although you fall out of it.

* SharedUniverse: As of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar'', ''Black Ops'' shares a universe with ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2019''.

-->-- '''''Call of Duty: Black Ops'' Tagline'''

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty1'' (2003), ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty2'' (2005), ''Call of Duty 3'' (2006): The first three main installments, taking place during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, most notably the Western front, Eastern front and North African front.

* ForcesWithFirepower: Mainstay factions of the series include the UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks and UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships as the main protagonists across all eras, UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets as a protagonist faction during the WWII era and as an enemy one in games set during the Cold War, their UsefulNotes/RussiansWithRustingRockets successors in the various Modern Warfare games, and the UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons as entirely antagonistic force in the WWII games. Various notable one-off factions include:

* ForcesWithFirepower: Mainstay factions of the series include the UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks and UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships as the main protagonists across all eras, UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets as a protagonist faction during the WWII era and as an enemy one in games set during the Cold War, their UsefulNotes/RussiansWithRustingRockets successors in the various Modern Warfare games, and the UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons as entirely antagonistic force in the WWII games.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyStrikeTeam'' (developed by Blast Furnace, set in the same universe as ''Black Ops II'')

* VideogameCaringPotential: Mostly in the form of protecting your squadmates, though the later titles also offer the chance to [[MercyKill put dying enemies out of their misery]]. ''World at War'' made this more blatant during the campaign.

* ''Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III'' (2023)