Best Call Of Duty Black Ops Game

Summary

• Call of Duty: Black Ops
  games range from the terrible to the best of the best in the series, each with its own unique gameplay experience.
• Black Ops
  titles on different platforms offer varying stories and gameplay mechanics, with some entries more worthy of players' time than others.
• The series has evolved with each new entry, introducing new features such as Battle Royale mode, advanced movement mechanics, and wider multiplayer options.

To make a family tree of Call of Duty game would be an almost impossible feat. It all started from a great World War II game, but has since branched out into many sub-series, some of which take place in the same continuity while others stand entirely on their own.

Players who want to follow a path would find many interesting stories in Black Ops games, but not all of these titles are created equal. As the list below shows, Black Ops the subseries goes from the best of the best to the bottom of Call of Duty barrel.

While
World at war
occurs in the same continuity, it is omitted from the list because it is not an actual one
Black Ops
title.

Updated on December 12, 2024 by Jason Wojnar: Most of the Black Ops games were easy to follow in continuity until 2020 came along and decided to destroy the numbering convention with Black Ops: Cold War. The 2024 Call of Duty game made things even weirder by being Black Ops 6. Black Ops: Cold War is the fifth Black Ops game but for some reason they decided not to call it that. However, these two games are still directly linked. Weird names aren't important though. What really matters is where Black Ops 6 ranks in the ranking of the best games in the Black Ops sub-series.

10 Black Ops: Declassified

Two analog sticks couldn't save this game

• Drop: November 13, 2012
• Developer: nStigate games
• Platforms: PS Vita

The PS Vita was one of the most powerful handhelds of its time, but power means nothing if the base game isn't worth writing home about. Black Ops – Declassified is a terrible game in itself and looks even worse compared to the rest of the games that carry Black Ops name.

The single-player campaign feels like it's been pieced together with duct tape, with none of the excitement you'd expect from the series' stories. The multiplayer does its best to provide the proven Cod suite on a handheld, but people were better off waiting until they could play on their console at home.

9 Call Of Duty: Black Ops Mobile

Before mobile games competed with consoles

• Release date: December 31, 2010
• Developer: Glu Mobile
• Publisher: Activision

In 2010, mobile phones weren't powerful enough to recreate console experiences. This can be a blessing at times, as at least you can play a completely different game on a phone. Black Ops Mobile takes place in Vietnam and the game is a return to top-down shooters.

It looks and feels like a SNES or Genesis game, an interesting perspective too Call of Duty series. Unfortunately, gaming often suffered on these older mobile devices. Black Ops Mobile is far from an ideal gaming experience.

8 Black Ops DS

Different games with similar names

• Drop: November 9, 2010
• Developer: n-Space
• Platforms: Nintendo DS

Although it has the same name, Call of Duty: Black Ops on the Nintendo DS is a different game than its console counterpart. It tells a slightly different story and the handheld's unique capabilities fundamentally change how players engage in combat.

The handheld games were all handled by the same developer, and the titles got progressively better with each entry. Black Ops DS isn't really worth anyone's time now, but it was definitely one of the better FPS games for Nintendo's unique handheld.

7 Black Ops Zombies

An amazing mobile adaptation of the Zombies mode

• Drop: December 1, 2012
• Developer: Glu Mobile, Marmalade Game Studios, Ideaworks Game Studios
• Publisher: Activision, Activision

In the same way that Capcom released a standalone Mercenaries game for the Nintendo 3DS, Activision made a separate Zombies game for iOS. Black Ops Zombies is a shockingly complete version of the popular game mode for mobile devices. It came out in 2012 so the graphics aren't up to the standards of modern high-end mobile titles, but that shouldn't detract from its quality when the gameplay feels so smooth.

The game launched with Kino before content updates added a couple more maps. As if that's not enough, Dead Ops Arcade was also included in the package. The only thing standing against it is the older hardware and the fact that it's a game mode where every other game has a campaign, multiplayer and Zombies.

6 Black Ops 4

No single player hurts its quality

The fourth numbered entry in this subseries took a unique approach in that it eschewed the single player story mode entirely. Being a multiplayer-only title didn't hurt sales, but it did alienate a small portion of the audience. Black Ops 4 also introduced the battle royale genre to the series with the Blackout mode.

Blackout was successful but lacked some of the modern conveniences War zone would eventually be implemented, and it was not updated as often. While the lack of a single player is disappointing, there's still plenty of good content for those solely interested in multiplayer and zombies, even if the latter lacked enjoyment in terms of story elements and map design.

5 Black Ops – Cold War

Enter Black Ops in the 1980s

The 2020 entry in the series was something of a return to basics for the series. It doesn't dabble in any future stories and stays firmly planted in the Cold War era, benefiting from the aesthetic of missions once again set in Vietnam and some covert missions behind the Iron Curtain.

The multiplayer offers a particularly wide range of options for all types of players. The mainstays are here but there's also Face Off, a three-on-three mode with maps tailored for the smaller number of players that would please fans of older, more hectic FPS games like TimeSplitters or Quake. The more modern game mechanics suited this title, although there was some disappointment with how easy the zombies mode was and how short the campaign was.

4 Call Of Duty: Black Ops

The debut Black Ops game

The first one Black Ops introduced more espionage to the series with a more cerebral story that focuses on characters rather than world-ending stakes, not to say the stakes aren't still high. Looking back at it through a modern lens, the game doesn't feel as refined or polished as future entries.

But the story is still exciting and it introduces many iconic characters like Frank Woods and Alex Mason. It was also the first time the series covered the Vietnam War, evoking the era by using the popular yet effective tropes of the era's iconic classic rock songs. In addition to an incredible thriller story, the zombie content was also the start of some of the best.

3 Black Ops 3

Leap into the future with a co-op campaign

Black Ops 3's takes place in the future and players have access to advanced movement mechanics that change the way they approach combat. This, along with the ability to play through the campaign in co-op with three other people online (one other person locally), makes the title unique to this day.

Story combat encounters are more open than usual, and the ability to jump, dash and wall run open up gameplay possibilities, these mechanics translate to the multiplayer mode for high-octane action and frustration. The story has nothing in common with the previous one Black Ops game, which is somewhat of a disappointment, but the game makes up for it with the best zombie content in the series.

2 Black Ops 2

An ambitious campaign

Black Ops 2 rides the line between taking the series in a radical direction while maintaining it Black Ops identity. Most of the characters from the first game return and some plot threads continue, but it also jumps back and forth through time, hinting at the futuristic aesthetic that some later games would run with.

The single player also has optional missions and multiple endings. It was a big one Call of Duty game for anyone who may have grown tired of the series in 2012 and undoubtedly stands the test of time as one of the best multiplayer games out there COD game thanks to meta, maps and modes.

Depending on one's opinion of Avenged Sevenfold, the band's cameo at the end of the game could either be the icing on the cake or the ruin of an otherwise solemn and dark ending.

1 Black Ops 6

A varied single player campaign and fast multiplayer

The 2024 game comes after the dud that was Modern Warfare 3. Even without this significant uptick in quality from a bad year, Black Ops 6 stands as one of the finest Call of Duty game of this generation. The single player campaign ensures that each level feels different. Many missions introduce new mechanics to keep players interested before moving on to something new in the following level.

The multiplayer is incredibly fast paced thanks to the introduction of the omnimovement system. Zombies brings back the easter eggs of the past and is more approachable than the harder wave-based modes of previous games.