Overview
Call of Duty begins on the battlefields of World War II. The first three entries build a formula around spectacular military campaigns experienced through several soldiers, before Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare abruptly shifts the series toward contemporary conflicts. World at War then returns to World War II while opening another major branch of the franchise, which would lead to Black Ops.
The Modern Warfare and Black Ops trilogies gradually give Call of Duty several parallel identities. The first develops large-scale modern warfare, while the second focuses more on covert operations, political manipulation and different historical periods. Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, Black Ops III and Infinite Warfare then push the series toward standalone or futuristic conflicts, with technologies and abilities increasingly removed from its military origins.
WWII marks a deliberate return to World War II, before Black Ops IIII places a strong emphasis on multiplayer and Zombies experiences. Modern Warfare then relaunches this branch within a new continuity and with a more contemporary approach. Taken together, these sixteen entries show a series that retains an immediately recognizable foundation while constantly alternating between historical periods, technologies, subseries and different ways of portraying war.
