The Call of Duty franchise releases new titles almost every single year. It established itself as one of the most popular action shooters worldwide, and every month attracts millions of gamers. Some gamers dislike the regularity of Call of Duty releases because it implies that the game studio is not adding anything new to the new releases, which was the case in the past. In the case of Call of Duty: Black Ops IV, it was the first game without the traditional story mode and added new game modes, most notably the Blackout Mode, a battle royale mode that precedes Warzone. This article will discuss whether Call of Duty: Black Ops IV is worth playing.

Call of Duty: Black Ops IV is not worth playing in 2023. As much as the game was unique from the rest of the franchise when it came out in 2018, it was “hot” for a few months until the Call of Duty: Warzone was released. Blackout mode was a huge selling point of the game, a new battle royale mode that was much more fun than most games on the market. However, players didn’t stick with the game because it was expensive, and the other games arrived – for example, a free-for-play, full battle royale game, Call of Duty: Warzone.

We will discuss this topic more by analyzing the Call of Duty: Black Ops IV game and its content, the good and bad sides of the shooter, and explain our answer in the article’s conclusion. If you are interested, stay with us until the end.

Good and bad sides of Call of Duty: Black Ops IV

Call of Duty: Black Ops IV is having a fifth anniversary in 2023 since its release, and with a lot of new Call of Duty content that we got last few years, Black Ops IV seems forgotten. However, some players look back on Black Ops IV as a prototype to Call of Duty: Warzone, which became extremely popular since its release in 2019, and “the one that got away.” Treyarch worked on Black Ops IV, and they really tried to make the game unique in the franchise. Have they done a good job? Well, the pre-release didn’t bode well with the critics, but the official release in 2018 was much better, and the game surpassed another popular game of the franchise, Call of Duty: WWII.

But before we make the final decision about the game, let’s look at the pros and cons of Black Ops IV.

Dynamic, fast, and unique gameplay

One of the best parts of Black Ops IV was its gameplay. Now, some skeptics will say most modern Call of Duty multiplayer games has similar gameplay. Still, as you played Black Ops IV, you could feel that everyone moved faster, kills were ramping up quickly, and overall gameplay seemed quite smooth. The last point can be connected to new game modes and additions to the Call of Duty structure since Treyarch introduced a lot of content.

Great game modes that enrich already dynamic gameplay

This brings us to the next good side of Black Ops IV – new game modes. Let’s start with only Multiplayer mode. This particular mode went through a lot of updates. One included the Specialist’s return from Black Ops III, unique soldiers with special abilities and traits. Ten Specialists from the previous game were added to Black Ops IV, and more were added later.

In that aspect, Treyarch changed the limitation to two Specialists per team and the removal of automatic healing regeneration, where players had to manually heal themselves. Another cool feature included different ballistic and recoil systems, with enhanced personalization of the weapons – players could personalize their weapons in more detail.

However, the biggest addition to the game was a battle royale mode called Blackout. This game mode was a stand-in for the absent Campaign mode, with featured notable characters from the Black Ops franchise, like Alex Mason and Raul Menendez. The nostalgia factor is always welcomed, but Blackout mode’s playability made Black Ops IV so entertaining. Moreover, Blackout had two special game modes called “Close Quarters” that featured faster and more aggressive gameplay, while “Fast Collapse” featured the fast-narrowing circle we have in Fortnite.

New Zombie mode experience

Zombies have been part of the Call of Duty games since World at War, and since then, it has been one of the most popular game modes of the franchise. In Black Ops IV, Treyarch presented us with new features, including “Custom Mutations,” where players can customize difficulty, health, damage, zombie speed, and more.

Moreover, players could play a time-limited mode where players kill Zombies and fight against time. It’s worth mentioning the game mode “Rush,” new consumables called Elixirs that grant buffs to players and Talismans, and special modifiers added before every match. Finally, Zombie mode gained two special storylines making Black Ops IV the first game to have it.

Zombie mode in Black Ops IV has much more content than in previous games, which makes it more fun.

However, despite many positives, Black Ops IV has flaws.

The game is still really expensive

During its release, Black Ops IV was priced as any new action shooter, somewhere between 70 and 80 American dollars. However, in 2023, Activision didn’t reduce the price that much, and the game, as of writing this article, is 60$. That is too much for a game that is five years old, and since then, Call of Duty has released a few more games.

It doesn’t help that Warzone is a free-to-play battle royale with most of the features that Black Ops IV has. Some will agree, and some won’t, but that is the reality of the situation – a five-year-old game is still highly priced while Warzone is free.

No singleplayer mode

Treyarch did a good job of covering for the absent Campaign mode in Black Ops IV, but most gamers agree that was the missed feature. Look, as much as many people got overwhelmed with the Call of Duty content, veteran CoD players will agree that Campaign was always solid in previous games. The first two Black Ops games set high standards for future Campaigns of CoD games. Mason, Woods, Menendez, Petrenko, Reznov… all of these characters made a significant impression on the players, and that depth was lacking in Black Ops IV. Also, not all players want to play Multiplayer – they just want to relax and enjoy themselves.

Season pass and microtransaction

This reason is heavily featured in any Call of Duty discussions. Purchasing bonus content for the game is quite common, but what really irked the fans was the inability to purchase content without the season pass. The feature was already controversial, but fans felt pressured to buy the season pass in Black Ops IV because they couldn’t progress in the game otherwise. Microtransactions that include buying packages, skins, and other addons were also a huge minus.

Treyarch added purchasable loot in 2019, and it only enraged the fans even more because another feature propelled the notorious “pay-to-win” start among the players.

Is Call of Duty: Black Ops IV worth playing in 2023?

So, is Call of Duty: Black Ops IV worth playing in 2023? Unfortunately, no. The game had great new features and add-ons, especially regarding dynamic gameplay and unique game modes. However, what Call of Duty franchise is famous for is the tendency to release new titles every year, and that ultimately killed Black Ops IV. 

The is still priced at 60$, and for a five-year-old game, that is just too much, especially when game developers focus on other games. Finally, the release of Warzone killed the idea of Blackout battle royale, despite the opinion that the game mode seems more enjoyable than the more popular Warzone.

It does help that Warzone is free-to-play and available for cross-platform gameplay, and available for almost everyone. Hopefully, Treyarch implements some great features from Black Ops IV to other Call of Duty projects. There is a rumor that Warzone 2 will somehow feature Blackout mode. If there’s smoke, there’s fire as well, and hopefully, that happens.

The Call of Duty franchise has been dominating the gaming world for years. Since the first installment of the franchise released in 2003, simply called Call of Duty, the game has been growing in success and popularity amongst players worldwide. However, the franchise is under constant criticism from the gaming community and has been hailed as bad, repetitive, and blatantly uncreative. Furthermore, Activision is blamed for most of the problems gaming faces these days, which got us thinking – are Call of Duty games that bad?

The Call of Duty franchise is not bad at all. Despite being repetitive and sometimes uncreative in their approach, the games still have good features. The gaming community doesn’t like Activision’s policies and exploitation of their fanbase with microtransactions and how they “played in” the trend of the “pay to win” start a lot of gaming companies are doing. However, the games themselves aren’t bad – on the contrary, some have great single-player and even better multiplayer.

We will discuss this topic by mentioning why people dislike Call of Duty so much and add some of our observations of the games over the years. If you are interested in this topic, stay with us until the end.

Most common reasons why Call of Duty games are bad

The gaming community has always been vocal in how they rated released games; some would say they are more demanding and “picky” than film and TV series fans. With the Internet, ways of criticizing and demanding answers from game developers have become more accessible, which is needed and understandable since games are insanely expensive today. Call of Duty games are regularly one of the most expensive on the market, which brings us to the first reason.

Call of Duty games are too expensive and encourages microtransactions too much.

Activision regularly releases games every year or every second year, which is good for players who like new content. However, if the product doesn’t offer anything new and creative, most new released will be “found out” by the community.

Call of Duty fell into that hole a decade ago when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released in 2011. Previous installments, Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare II were successful and generally loved by the fans. Still, MW 3 was a literal rehash of the previous games that didn’t offer anything exciting. Same linear story with a lot of action sequences and some resolved plot points, and that’s basically it. Multiplayer added a few more maps and features that weren’t that notable.

Even today, MW 3 costs 40$, which is insane for a twelve-year-old game. Since Call of Duty games today are bought mostly for multiplayer, the way it encourages microtransactions is a huge disadvantage. However, most players still spend their money on various things, so people shouldn’t be surprised that Activision offers these features knowing their players will purchase them. Many games “fell victim to microtransactions” and will stay like this for years.

The toxic fanbase makes the multiplayer experience insufferable.

Last two decades, multiplayer games reached impressive popularity, and Call of Duty was truly one of the first games that kickstarted the modern multiplayer genre. Since the first Call of Duty game, online servers have been full of players from all over the world who could test their skills online against their peers.

Consoles also joined the multiplayer mode, and Call of Duty soon became one of the most-played multiplayer games in the world. Older players are still hunted by the abuse they got when playing this first-person shooter online during the mid and late 2000s. Xbox 360 had the option to send voice messages to other players connected through Xbox Live, and let’s just say that players didn’t send heartwarming messages to their teammates and opponents.

Hurling abuse and sending awful messages gained the Call of Duty fanbase a notorious reputation for being toxic and unbearable. You could say that Call of Duty games were pioneers for the unpleasant gaming experience, which got exaggerated over the years since all online games have similar problems. In the past, game studios didn’t regulate lobbies and in-game interactions, which is much better nowadays. Especially for games that include a lot of skill, and Call of Duty is one of those skill-based games.

Repetitive gameplay and uncreative decisions lead to the same old games.

Although Activision regularly releases various Call of Duty projects, players accused most of them of being uncreative and repetitive. The Call of Duty franchise has over 21 games released today, and an only handful in the last few years were unique. Warzone seems like the freshest game since it moved away from classic first-person shooting-based deathmatch game modes to battle royale, which became popular with the release of Fortnite.

Call of Duty storytelling has been a hit-and-miss over the years, with Modern Warfare and Black Ops trilogies seemingly being the most concrete (both trilogies generally have bad third installments). Modern Warfare got its reboot, was quite popular amongst the players, and was complimented for its multiplayer. However, at times it still felt like Activision/Infinity Ward were recycling the same old games.

The biggest and boldest move from the game studio came in the form of Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare, which moved the franchise to space, and frankly, the campaigns were good, but players weren’t that big fans of that change. Immediately after those games, CoD moved back to Earth and started telling or retelling stories of the past, which we saw before from the franchise. The futuristic CoD projects weren’t masterpieces but weren’t inherently bad games, and the fans’ reaction dictated how the CoD franchise would conduct their games in the future – back to old ways.

The size of Call of Duty games increased tenfold.

Over the years, Call of Duty games added more and more features to their games, increasing their size tenfold. Players reported that new Modern Warfare reboots had almost 200 GB of file games to download, which some consoles can’t spare so willingly. For example, Xbox offers 500-megabyte and 1-terabyte memory consoles to their consumers, and having a game that can reach 200 GBs is problematic for any device with up to one terabyte on its hard discs.

Yes, constant updates and balancing of the game requires a lot of new files, but still, the size of some of these games is ridiculous. For example, Epic Games did a fantastic job balancing the size of Fortnite and ensured their game didn’t get over 100 GBs. Call of Duty game developers said multiple times that they could not decrease the size of their games like Fortnite has, but they still tried.

Call of Duty games became too unrealistic and transformed into bad action movies.

First-person shooters were action-packed from their beginnings in the 1980s and stayed like today. When Call of Duty released its first game in 2003, it directly competed with the Medal of Honor, which was heavily inspired by the Saving Private Ryan movie. EA Games even got famous director Steven Spielberg to help them with the game’s storyline.

Call of Duty 2 was much more successful because it valued epic action scenes, and we felt like we were part of the siege of Stalingrad or the D-Day operation. Gameplay was dynamic, fun, and non-stop, making CoD 2 successful. It helped that multiplayer was also regarded as one of the best modes of that era.

Modern Warfare, or CoD 4, was a game changer because the franchise moved away from WWII and transported us to modern warfare, as the game’s name suggests. CoD 4 had great multiplayer, entertaining gameplay, great voice acting, and action scenes that make CoD 4 absolutely amazing.

CoD was never supposed to be a war simulator; Activision always intended their game to be a fun, action-packed game where players will feel like they are part of a cool action movie. The issue with recent CoD games was the repetitiveness and recycling of the same old stories that made games look like bad action movies, which the gaming community didn’t appreciate.

Are Call of Duty games that bad?

All of these reasons are valid criticisms from the gaming community. The CoD franchise did a lot of good for the first-person shooter genre but also was pioneering practices in gaming that weren’t good for the gamers. Microtransactions, expensive games, and new releases that didn’t add anything exceptional are problems the CoD franchise is guilty of, among other notable franchises.

With that being said, CoD isn’t a bad game because it brings some value to the market, especially in the action-first-person genre. Call of Duty multiplayer is still one of the best and most dynamic games on the market today and still attracts many gamers daily. Some players are bad, and some are good, and if you are bothered by abuse from others, just mute them – in the end, Call of Duty is entertaining, which is the most important thing.

Call of Duty, the iconic first-person shooter franchise, has consistently enthralled gamers for nearly two decades. With each new release, fans eagerly anticipate the latest installment’s thrilling new features and gameplay. As we enter 2023, the question on many fans’ minds is: what is the most popular Call of Duty game among players? In this article, we’ll take a look at the top contenders and explore the reasons behind their enduring popularity. Let’s take a look at the most-played Call of Duty game in 2023. 

Currently, the most played Warzone 2.0, a free battle royale mode of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II release. The nineteenth installment rose to the top of the best-selling games charts nearly instantly after being released at the end of October. At the time of writing this post, Modern Warfare 2 is the fastest-selling Call of Duty title of all time, earning just over $800 million in the first three days and $1 billion in the span of the next ten days.  

Now that we’ve covered the most popular and most played title in the Call of Duty franchise currently, it’s time to analyze the number in a bit more detail. If you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

Call of Duty Modern Warfare II was the fastest-selling video game in the Call of Duty franchise 

On October 28, 2022, Call of Duty Modern Warfare was released. It was the nineteenth entry in the franchise and a sequel to Modern Warfare, released in 2016. The game was highly anticipated, and despite being on the pricier side, the game broke all kinds of records. Both when it comes to popularity and revenue. 

In the first three days of release, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II managed to earn $800 million. The number becomes even more mind-blowing following the next ten days after release since the revenue further rose to $1 billion.  

It’s safe to say that the game was both a commercial success and highly critically acclaimed upon release, featuring many improvements when compared to the previous, more disappointing installment. However, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II wasn’t successful on its own. Part of its popularity was achieved via the game’s new release of a free-to-play battle royale mode called Warzone 2.

In the first week following the immediate release of the game, Warzone 2 hit 25 million players, becoming more successful than even the paid Modern Warfare II. This is understandable since free-to-play games, especially free-to-play games tied to such legendary franchises, tend to explode in popularity in the first few weeks after release. 

How many people play Warzone 2.0 in 2023? 

While we don’t have the exact data for Warzone 2.0 due to the game being available on numerous platforms and not all of them being open when it comes to sharing such data, we can rely on Steam Steam Charts data to see how many people are currently playing Warzone 2.0 on Steam Alone. 

At the moment of writing this article, Warzone 2.0 is played by around 108 000 players on Steam alone. This is nowhere near an accurate representation of a true player number since the Steam Charts have access to Steam’s data only. The current player numbers already show a significant decrease compared to the game’s initial release. On Sunday, November 20, 2022, Warzone 2.0 saw an absolute peak in players as almost 500 000 players played the game on Steam alone. 

The game lost nearly 22 % of its initial player base on Steam in the last 30 days. However, once again, I need to repeat those are not completely accurate numbers of the player base since those data are only representations of Steam’s data. 

Why is Warzone 2.0 so popular? 

Warzone’s popularity can be explained briefly. First, it improved upon the aspects of the previous version of the game, and it’s completely free. 

The much-loathed battle pass that players have been having trouble with in the previous installment has been completely reworked, and added extra functionalities and features that are worth purchasing. 

The most acclaimed new feature of the Warzone 2.0 seems to be the extraction game mode, heavily influenced by Escape from Tarkov. Players engage in battles against both computer-controlled and player-controlled opponents while trying to leave the area with the loot they have gathered within the playable zone, also known as the Exclusion Zone. They begin with a limited inventory for storing their acquired loot from matches. The inventory can be increased by completing Faction missions, which provide more guaranteed loadout weapon slots or the chance to unlock base weapons and cosmetic rewards that can be used in both Warzone 2.0 and Modern Warfare II.

Warzone 2.0 has likewise an overhauled setting in the form of a new desert map called Al Mazrah with 18 points of interest, new mechanics, and the ability to dive. 

Summary 

As you can see, Call of Duty started 2023 on the right track with previously unseen record sales and generally favorable reviews of the latest installment in the franchise. Modern Warfare II is sure to maintain the generated early interest thanks to the all-new and improved battle-royale mode Warzone 2.0.