We're definitely in a Call of Duty mood at the moment with the arrival of Modern Warfare 3 on Xbox Game Pass and Black Ops 6 heading to the service later this year, so now feels like a good time to look back at the series on Xbox!
A few months ago, we asked for your favourite Call of Duty game on Xbox to date, and using those votes, we've put together a list of the best CoD titles for Microsoft's consoles from 2005-2024. The results are in the video above.
Now, we don't want to spoil the video too much (our video producer Craig worked long and hard on getting footage for each of these games!), but we'll say that Call of Duty: Vanguard got the least votes, and the top three looks like this:
Notably, the port of the original Call of Duty for Xbox 360 (known as CoD Classic) actually came in eighth position, and Xbox Game Pass's MW3 was much lower down the list in fifteenth... perhaps that might change in the future?
Of course, everyone's got their own opinion on the best Xbox Call of Duty games and we're sure that your list at least differs slightly to the one we've put together here. So, what would you put in the top three? Tell us in the comments!
What's the best Xbox Call of Duty game in your opinion? How about the worst? We want your thoughts!
Comments 17
So basically during the Xbox 360 era when Xbox had the COD advertising rights and as good as ruled the console world.
What a difference those years have made. Xbox down in the dumps and COD with mostly crap campaigns.
Enjoyed COD2, MW and MW2 on 360 but thought World at War was a bit naff. I missed the Xbox One generation completely so it all seems quite fresh again to me - really enjoying MWIII on GP. If it is one of the worst ones then it’ll be happy days catching up with the series (hopefully all on GP eventually).
@Feffster I've only played 4 games in the entire series, so it'll all be fresh to me. I only care about the campaigns though at this point. Multiplayer doesn't interest me at all.
@FarmDog08 - I’m also only really talking about the campaigns, not too bothered about multiplayer. Particularly looking forward to the 2019 Modern Warfare & MWII if they make it onto Gamepass.
I think I have played every CoD campaign, though I have little memory of most of them. I don't think I've ever finished one and thought it to be completely naff, though a couple have been on the short side. I'd happily play each of them once again if I can ever find the time. As for the multiplayer, or Zombies, I never touch them. Up until the next CoD releases, I have bought every single game, and only ever played the Campaign, so I'm pretty chuffed that I won't be needing to do that in the future thanks to Game Pass...
I really used to enjoy this series since it's 360 heyday. I downloaded MW3 on Gamepass yesterday and deleted it less than an hour later. The mechanics are really the only thing COD has going for it in my opinion but I accept I'm also long past being in school or university now which is probably the main age demographic for these titles.
I do think there is and has been enormous potential for an excellent, maybe even co-op campaign but it's clearly always been an after thought for this cash cow, a bombastic yet short and shallow experience. There have been scores of better fps campaigns in the last decade.
Infinite Warfare and MW (2019) are my favourite of the newer campaigns, and personally prefer the original MW trilogy to BO, but most of the campaigns are a good time. Apart from WAW, which unlike most people, I really dislike.
The list is difficult for me, as I only care for the campaigns, not a MP fan. So the ranking on some of these games baffles me!! Infinite Warfare is maybe the best campaign in the damn series!!!
Absolutely can not believe that it’s 15 years this year since MW2 was brought out and it’s still right up there as one of my favourites along with Black Ops 2.
Never quite understood the love for Black Ops, the story was ungrounded, but original Modern Warfare Trilogy was peak COD imo.
Black Ops 4 was robbed. In my opinion, CoD multiplayer peaked with Blackout.
Never particularly loved CoD campaigns, but I sort of checked out on completing them after Black Ops 1. Black Ops sort of felt like CoD jumping the shark for me and the campaigns following that, I just would start and not finish them. Cold War is the only one I’ve completed since then and, as much as the campaign was more solid for a CoD title, I think it belongs toward the bottom of the list because the multiplayer was pitiful.
@Dimey Infinite Warfare is def underrated imo too
I really liked the campaign in COD: Cold War. That game goes under the radar sometimes.
MW3 is actually really fun. I'm having a blast with it. I am kind of regretting completely ignoring COD myltiplayer over the last decade.
I have always been a sucker for the campaigns but I usually waited years to get those cheap.
About a year ago I mentioned on here that I had missed most of the call of duty games, with my last game being Cod2 on 360. I was curious about the games that connected as I was preparing to get into the campaigns of the series. I knew that cod4mw - mw2 - mw3 was a connected trilogy for obvious reasons. So I finally got around to playing them for the first time and wow was it a great experience! I thoroughly enjoyed this trilogy of the original modern warfare games. However now I’m looking at playing another series of story linked games.
Someone told me world at war then goes into black ops 1 and then black ops 2. Is that the only connected series of the remaining games? Does black ops 3 continue black ops 2? What other story linked series are there?
I mean that lost makes perfect sense.
I mean most people don't realize, but after Modern Warfare 2 2009, the actual creators of CoD (Jason West and Vince Zampella) were fired from Activision. They took a large chunk of loyal development talent with them to go form Respawn Entertainment.
A large part of why they were let go was due to disputes about letting Treyarch freely use IW assets without crediting IW in their games.
So basically, every CoD before 2010 was either directly developed by the original creators, or used assets created by the original developers.
After West and Zampella was fired, that is the time most people would agree the series started going downhill. BOII did well because it was the last game to benefit from leftover IW concepts and assets, but after that the skeleton crew that replaced the original CoD devs was on their own.
I don't care what anyone says, you can't replace the original creators of a franchise with a bunch of yes-men and expect the same quality as before. And CoD will never return to its glory days without its original creators. Everything that comes out in that series now is nothing but a remake or a sequel trying to recapture some of that past glory
I tried a call of duty game on Xbox 360 once, I think it was the first one.
Cod 4 and cod wow hold some amazing memories with squads full of friends. Was a great time. Very much only play solo now. Usually pick up and play most campgains and had a blast with war zone through lockdown. Infinite warfare was a great campaign change I really enjoyed
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