5 Best Selling Call of Duty Games Ever [Ranked]

Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) – 30.72 Million Copies Sold

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the absolute best-selling Call of Duty game of all time, and also a game that had a super high impact on the FPS industry. If you have ever played it, you know that it came with some of the best CoD maps and iconic CoD campaign characters that will always be remembered by any fan of the series.

Of course, it was the inaugural game in the Black Ops series, so its sales set a high bar for the future games by breaking multiple records in the first week after its release. However, despite its commercial success, the game has been criticized in multiple reviews for being monotonous and rushed, and as of today, many people consider the first Black Ops one of the worst games in the Call of Duty series. 

I don't agree with it, but I also wouldn't consider it as one of the worst Call of Duty games. Still, whether you like Black Ops or not, high sales don't have to be related to the actual quality of the product, but rather the marketing around it. To this day, it is one of the best selling video games ever, especially if we are talking about console games.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011) – 30.71 Million Copies Sold

You knew this was going to be on the list! Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is highly praised for its multiplayer aspects, innovative gameplay, and some of the best campaign missions in the entire history of the Call of Duty franchise. Moreover, Modern Warfare 3 kind of saved the franchise, as people didn't care too much about Call of Duty back then... well, until Modern Warfare 3 came with all these fancy features and new game modes. It really changed it all, and it also made the previous games from the franchise popular again.

Even fans who prefer the World War II setting traditionally associated with Call of Duty love this game, and it is considered to be the best Call of Duty game to this day by many players. I have my other favorite, but Modern Warfare 3 surely had the best Call of Duty multiplayer mode ever, and no other game in the franchise is even close.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (2012) – 29.59 Million Copies Sold

We all know Black Ops 2 for its nonlinear gameplay and multiple endings, which is something that was super unique for the Call of Duty series at the time. It was also the first game to include some of the best guns in Call of Duty and challenging objectives.

Personally speaking, this is my favorite Call of Duty game, and apparently, I am not the only one. This game got multiple favorable reviews, and it was really well received. As I mentioned before, the first Black Ops set a pretty high bar, but well, Black Ops II delivered, and numbers clearly show it.

Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013) – 28.98 Million Copies Sold

As our fourth best-selling game in the Call of Duty series, we have CoD Ghosts with a compelling story set in the near future! This game was praised for a variety of game modes, broken weapons, and fairly balanced gameplay. Wow, now that I look at it, 2010-2015 was really the golden era for the franchise.

Well, this game is pretty specific, and for many Call of Duty fans, it might feel like Activision went too far with some things in the campaign (don't worry, we won't spoil it for you!).

I would put it like this – you either love this game, or you hate it. If you are into Modern Warfare type of games and you are looking for a World War II game, this one is probably not for you, honestly speaking. Still, the hype was real, as it was something new for the franchise, and as history shows, it always works for Call of Duty (one of the reasons why Black Ops 1 is on the top of our list).

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015) – 26.72 Million Copies Sold

Even though it's on the last position of this list, let's be honest – this is probably the best Call of Duty game in the Black Ops series. And the fact that it's still one of the best-selling Call of Duty games says a lot, as it was released right after Advanced Warfare, which was the worst-selling games in the series; people really hated it.

It was a bit bugged on its release, but the campaign, game modes, weapons, game balance... It really addressed many shortcomings of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, and it came with the vibe we knew from the previous Black Ops games, so no wonder why Activision achieved a commercial and critical success once again.

What I personally love Black Ops 3 for are new elements such as Specialist characters and a new movement system. Ahh, alright, this is the time to end this article, I am installing the game again to play on some Call of Duty zombies custom maps!