Since its jump to the current generation of consoles, the Call of Duty series has evolved beyond comprehension. Each year we see a new iteration of the game, and each year we are told of its every-increasing sales numbers, huge profits, and swelling online population. Call of Duty has quickly morphed into something other than just a videogame, and has become a staple of modern day pop culture. What was it which first brought about this change however? When did Call of Duty, get so, cool? As a game which began its journey as a mainly single player experience, with the sole purpose of recreating famous battles of the past, when did Call of Duty become the complete, multi-faceted game that it is today?

Call of Duty’s debut title on current generation consoles was with Call of Duty 2. Supplying a similar, yet still entertaining campaign like the previous titles, this Call of Duty title introduced us to the multiplayer component of the series for the first time, and became hugely popular.

With no gimmicks and add-ons, Call of Duty 2 was a stripped down first person shooter, akin to that of perhaps one of the greatest FPS’ of all time, Counterstrike. Today, it is almost as if the current crop of recent Call of Duty titles is suffering with the polar opposite of this problem, in that there is simply too much going on. Call of Duty titles have become so over encumbered by gimmicks and cheap nuances, that the still ever prospering series, has been met with criticism for simply trying to do too much. This leads to the question; have the developers sacrificed the concepts and ideas which made Call of Duty 2 such a hit, in favour of pandering to the new ‘youth culture’ stereotype it would seem defines the majority of the current fan-base of Call of Duty titles?

Directly following Call of Duty 2, an Xbox 360 launch title, came Call of Duty 3. Switching development teams to Treyarch for the first time, Call of Duty 3 was released after a development cycle of just 8 months. 4 versus 4 multiplayer skirmishes were replaced with 12 versus 12 class based combat, with an added slew of vehicles and special abilities such as air strikes. The game however, was ultimately seen as a poor successor to Call of Duty 2, especially in the online multiplayer aspect. Treyarch tried their hand at innovation, and it didn’t work. Now, it was Infinity Wards turn.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare directly followed Call of Duty 3 in the games sales timeline, and took a huge leap for the series in both single player and multiplayer aspects. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, it was set in modern times. In the single player experience, the game was hugely praised for a truly magnificent storyline which ended on a cliff-hanger, as well as providing iconic moments in gaming such as the ‘Nuke scene’, ’One Shot, One Kill’ and ‘Death from Above’. On top of that, the game, perhaps for the first time in a Call of Duty campaign, make the player feel, at least a little, emotionally involved in the storyline. For me, the single player campaign had reached its peak for a Call of Duty title, the plot, the music, the locations and the dramatic set pieces were all done to perfection. Whereas Call of Duty 3 had set the precedent for new ideas, Call of Duty 4 built upon this, and provided me, and many others who played it, with the best possible Call of Duty multiplayer experience thus far.

This would be iconic, for the people at development team Infinity Ward and publishers Activision had made something quite unique, something that reverberated so much through gaming, that even today, what Call of Duty 4 managed to create is still being emulated in games across the entire first person shooter spectrum. Infinity Ward hit the nail on the head when they created ‘the template’ which debuted in Call of Duty 4. Their motive was simple, take what Treyarch had begun to do in Call of Duty 3, and improve on it. Firstly, weaponry. Weapons could now have attachments. ‘Red Dot Sights’ and ‘ACOG Sights’ became the norm, as did Suppressors and under-slung Grenade Launchers. Second, came Killstreaks. If you managed to achieve three kills in a row, without dying, you gained a UAV. This allowed a small, invisible drone floating above the battlefield to reveal the enemy position to you and your team for 30 seconds. Want to go one better? 5 kills in a row gave you an air strike. Simply plot the location of impact on your radar and call in 3 waves of missiles from fast moving MiG aircraft to obliterate the enemy team. If you’re truly an absolute badass though, and got 7 kills in a row, then you unleashed the beast, and acquired a Attack Helicopter to do your job of killing the enemies for you. Thirdly, and probably the most impacting change to the series, came Perks. These had already made an appearance in Call of Duty 3, however Infinity Ward refined them, tweaked them, and made the player more dependant on them. Ultimately, a head to head between two players was now heavily balanced on what perks were active. Each player had three perk slots when entering the battlefield, blue, red and green. And in each slot, a player could assign a perk from the designated tier which gave them slight advancements on the battlefield. These ranged from having more ammunition, to dropping a live grenade when killed. As if these three key changes weren’t enough, Infinity Ward managed to implement another unique feature, in that of Prestige Mode. Infinity Ward took a levelling system of 55 levels, laced it with challenges and weapon unlocks to give to player rewards for playing, and then even gave them a button which, when max rank was hit, allowed them to start all over again. You might think, ‘that’s ridiculous, who would do that?’, well, pretty much everyone did. If you entered prestige mode 10 times, and levelled up well over 500 times, you were given the infamous Victoria Cross emblem. Recognizable from a mile away, everyone you played with would instantly notice you had completed the games levelling, 10 whole times, and although it sounds futile, some people might’ve even respected you for it. That was when they weren’t calling you a booster, that is. What Infinity Ward had done, was create a unique, addictive levelling experience which kept the player entertained and improved the games longevity, add to this weapon unlocks, perks, various game modes and challenges, and Infinity Ward had the recipe for one of the most all around complete shooters on the market. But how would they improve upon this even further? Well, they had the release year of Call of Duty 4 and another after that to figure it out.

The Call of Duty series was ever changing, but whereas Infinity Ward and Treyarch would do battle by releasing their respective games under the Call of Duty IP, one thing remained the same, which is still being emulated today, and that is the ‘template’, which was established in Call of Duty 4. Since then, Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops, and even games outside of the Call of Duty series such as Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Crysis 2 have copied from the template. The first game however to repeat the template almost exactly, was Call of Duty World at War, Treyarch’s first release since Call of Duty 3, and after the incredibly high standard of Call of Duty 4, Treyarch had a lot to live up to.

Firstly, Treyarch made the move to switch back to World War 2. It had already been done, and many of the fans who bought World at War were predictably disheartened because of this, and spent another year on Call of Duty 4. Killstreaks, Custom Classes and Customization returned, and were improved on, if you consider Attack Dogs better than a Helicopter, and that an Aperture Sight wasn’t a total rip off of the Red Dot Sight from Call of Duty 4. The game was ultimately successful, granted, but lacked any sort of difference to Call of Duty 4 besides the setting. Had the series reached its evolutionary peak? Treyarch didn’t think so, as World at War was the first, and to this day remains the only, Call of Duty title to include a Co-operative Campaign. And they even went one better, allowing for customization such as ’your guns shoot paintballs’, and a competitive scoring system. And as if Treyarch could read the mind of every teenager and like minded adult, they included a bonus mode for completing the campaign, a mode which would keep people coming back to World at War over and over again. Welcome to Nazi Zombies, Treyarchs ace in the hole. Simple reasoning from Treyarch it would seem, the only questions that needed answering were, ‘What type of game mode?’ and ‘Who or what are we fighting?’. Zombie survival was settled on. Christened ‘Nazi Zombies’ mode, Treyarchs additional game mode was hugely popular, as it tasked 1 to 4 players with fighting off increasingly more difficult waves of the undead as a team in a secluded environment. As far as the game mode and enemies went, Zombie survival wasn’t the most original concept, however including it in a Call of Duty title was an inspired decision, as this plucky game mode became the saving grace for many players who considered permanently going back to Call of Duty 4.

The next game in the Call of Duty timeline, was Modern Warfare 2, a direct sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Controversy enveloped this game more than any other Call of Duty title. Firstly, in the single player campaign, we had the little fiasco involving the completely avoidable mission, ‘No Russian’. This involved entering an airport as an undercover US agent and slaughtering Russian civilians in order to justify a war against America, when you were later exposed and vindicated as the perpetrator. The usual furore surfaced, with people (Usually misinformed dullards who have never picked up a game controller in their life) calling for the axe to drop on the game, which never happened anywhere other than in Russia, and gave the game more free publicity. The campaign ended on another cliff-hanger, with the storyline picking up on soon to be released title Modern Warfare 3. As for the multiplayer side of the game, things had predictably changed since we last dropped into the Modern Warfare universe. Firstly, the same template of Primary Weapon, Secondary Weapon, 3 Perks etc remained. Kill streaks also made a welcome return, only this time, you could pick any three from a list of 15 to enter a game with, ranging from the lower variations such as a controllable Predator Missile, to the downright absurd, in the form of the 25 kill game-ender, the Tactical Nuke. Amazingly, this dangling carrot changed the game and its online population more than any developer could’ve asked for. The Tac Nuke was something that players simply couldn’t resist. Free for all games saw the introduction of ‘Boosting’, which saw people who should’ve been shooting each other, working together to attain the ever elusive Nuke. Free for all simply became, squad up and hide in a corner (for all). Along with a myriad of new attachments (The most of any Call of Duty title to date) came Pro Perks. These allowed the player to upgrade Perks by completing challenges in the game, earning new advancements and experience points by doing so. For example, upgrading the ‘Bling’ Perk (Allows two attachments on primary weapon) allowed you to have two attachments on your secondary weapon. In keeping with the customization, along came customizable player tags, which allowed for a player to choose two unlockable preset images to make them more noticeable in a game. These came into play to announce when a player had called in a kill streak reward, or had captured an objective.

Unfortunately, Modern Warfare 2 wasn’t without its problems. The Tac Nuke was one of them, overpowered weapons and the game being prone to glitches and hacks didn’t help either. One thing which would, regrettably, set Modern Warfare 2 apart from other Call of Duty titles however, would be that it was incredibly casual. Kill streak rewards stacked, which meant kills made with an offensive kill streak, would count towards your next one, meaning that Tactical Nuke was ever more easy to attain. The combination of imbalanced Perks, Death Streaks (That’s right, rewards for dying several times in a row), inconsistent melee combat and over indulged players didn’t help. If you give a player a silenced, Thermal Scoped sniper rifle in a secluded area of the map overlooking the enemy team, then before long you’re going to have to deal with the inevitable AC-130 destroying all of your hopes an dreams. My time with Modern Warfare 2 ended shortly after the emergence of the ‘Javelin Glitch’, and 18 player lobbies on Rust.

Step forward our next contender, Call of Duty Black Ops. Before release, fans were already bracing for disappointment when it emerged that Activision had secured the licence for some of the themes of Vietnam, and fans braced for a return to war theatres past. Fortunately for them, Black Ops sent the player to numerous war theatres in a Cold War themed mind fuck of a campaign, which even featured World at Wars’ Sgt. Reznov in an important role as a figment of your imagination. No, really.

Multiplayer was predictably tweaked. Firstly, no Perks directly affected the damage output of your weapons, or the health held by the player, in essence, what you saw was what you got. Next, Sniping. Now, since the latter days of Call of Duty 4, a disturbing trend was beginning to develop. People were Sniping, simply because Sniper kills were apparently the most ‘sick’, meaning good, naturally. The ‘Machinima generation’ began Sniping even when the situation didn’t call for it, simply so they could capture the footage, upload it to the internet, and gain some sort of internet fame, as if that even mattered. Treyarch took drastic steps to quell this, and effectively negated the ability to use a Sniper Rifle quickly, and at close range. This may have been good for combating the montage makers, but for those of us who Snipe depending on the situation, this meant ascertain death when confronted with these factors. I have never seen a Call of Duty title so devoid of Sniping, as in Call of Duty Black Ops. Easily the most innovative change to the series however, was the inclusion of ‘Call of Duty Points’, or ‘CoD Points’ as they are more widely known. Gone are the days when the only way to unlock a desired weapon was by completing its respective challenge, now with CoD points, you choose when you want to unlock the weapons you want. Power to the player, right? Right. CoD points were a good addition to the series, and made Black Ops, that much more entertaining. Black Ops isn’t a flawless game, but it’s a damn good addition to the Call of Duty series, without a doubt, and in my opinion, the best Call of Duty title developed by Treyarch so far.

The next addition to the series however, will be the third, and possibly final instalment of the Modern Warfare franchise, with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 this November. The question to ask here, would be, in which direction will Modern Warfare 3 take the series? Sure, you’ve had your stripped down, core Call of Duty experience will Call of Duty 2, you’ve had your casual, yet oh-so over the top experience with Modern Warfare 2, and you’ve had your fresh and innovative experience with Call of Duty 4, so what’s next? Is their some point on the first person shooter spectrum untouched by the Call of Duty series? Will the game veer heavily down one route, or take bits and pieces from other games to mask the game as a further ‘new’ episode in the series? All we know is that the latest Call of Duty title, is the latest first person shooter ‘fad’, and that Modern Warfare 3 will either create a similar yet still enjoyable game, or change a winning formula, in the hope that it will reinvigorate one of the most well known brands of videogame shooter available. The ball is in your court, Infinity Ward.