Call of Duty
Ranked 9 of 24 first-person shooters by recommenders
Long-running shooter series whose early games and campaigns people still praise as classics. Critics say recent releases are heavy on battle passes, skins and install size.
Long-running shooter series whose early games and campaigns people still praise as classics. Critics say recent releases are heavy on battle passes, skins and install size.
55 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 38
- approval share
- 31%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Praised classic originals and campaigns
“Under Infinity Ward they created MW2, which is maybe the only digestible COD game ever made.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died” “The single player campaign is considered as one of the best in FPS games ever.”
Comment from 23 Dec 2025 in “Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died” “the first Call of Duty was an absolute revelation to the FPS genre”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “EA is shutting down BioWare” - Comment from 25 Jun 2026 in “GTA 6 Physical Copies Won't Include a Disc, Will Just Be a Code in a Box”
Popular couch and multiplayer staple
“Most couch gamers want their GTA or Call of Duty, which, if I read correctly, this will not run.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Valve is about to win the console generation” “unless you only play the GTAs/CODs/Maddens of the industry”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Resetting Xbox”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Kernel anticheat blocks Linux and SteamOS
“many popular online multiplayer games, like Call of Duty, will not work with SteamOS”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Steam Machine” “games that use kernel-level anticheat that won't work, including newer BF6 and COD”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Train SIM Created by Just One Person Is Being Called the Best Ever Made” Microtransactions, battle passes and skins
“nothing even compares in that regard, I know the game is a shameless skin store”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “Using Generative AI in Content Production” “Unplayable solely by ridiculous amount of battle passes and stupid fantasy skins.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “Turtle WoW classic server announces shutdown after Blizzard wins injunction” “dynamically alter in game loot mechanics to get people to purchase in game items”
Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Meta is using the Linux scheduler designed for Valve's Steam Deck on its servers” - Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “"This cannot continue": Xbox leaders lay out "hard truths" behind sagging brand”
Derivative, declining, more commercialised
“people inevitably getting bored of playing derivative slop made by people who don't understand what made the originals good”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “Fuck it, make it anyway” “Roughly the same mechanics but much more commercialised, playing to the psychological weaknesses of players.”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: How would you set up a child’s first Linux computer?” “All those franchises are on a managed downward trajectory. Their Halcyon days are behind them.”
Comment from 25 Oct 2026 in “Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer” Huge disk space and resource use
“Seems it's just consuming a LOT more resources for not a lot of benefit.”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “The Low-Tech AI of Elden Ring” “I stopped playing CoD mainly because I was tired of juggling disk space to try to play it even casually.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Helldivers 2 devs slash install size from 154GB to 23GB”
Other first-person shooters people recommend
The four most recommended other first-person shooters, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quake | 118 | 29 | 80% | 12 | 28 yrs8 owners | Approved |
| Doom by id Software | 102 | 24 | 81% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Unreal Tournament 2004 | 51 | 12 | 81% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Quake III Arena | 49 | 3 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Call of DutyThis page | 17 | 38 | 31% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 56 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“All those franchises are on a managed downward trajectory. Their Halcyon days are behind them.”
“the first Call of Duty was an absolute revelation to the FPS genre”
“I think if you want to be the CEO of Xbox that you must demonstrate some kind of ranked ladder experience in halo or COD.”
“people inevitably getting bored of playing derivative slop made by people who don't understand what made the originals good”
“Absolutely crazy that these CVE-ridden CoDs are being sold by Microsoft itself!”
“Fortnite, PUBG, COD, all are disgraceful in comparison.”
“effectively every game outside of the last 2 years has so many bad CVEs”
“PS3 Call of Duty online play being very unreliable compared to Xbox Live”
“shit like the latest CoD won't run because of active work by the devs”
“games that use kernel-level anticheat that won't work, including newer BF6 and COD”
“unless you only play the GTAs/CODs/Maddens of the industry”
“sales of CoD are slumping. Hard. Like down-by-60% hard.”
“Old school COD was great.”
“explicitly deny their anti cheat from working on Linux”
“Seems it's just consuming a LOT more resources for not a lot of benefit.”
“many popular online multiplayer games, like Call of Duty, will not work with SteamOS”
“They keep trying to remove it and have made the game a glorified Fortnite.”
“COD is probably one of the games with the best track record here”
“they get no recurring revenue from you continuing to play the current one”
“Look at what they did with COD, destroyed what was already broken.”
“Unplayable solely by ridiculous amount of battle passes and stupid fantasy skins.”
“Video games in particular has a serious mind-altering affect on men.”
“oh what a glorious thing to be an american soldier”
“not too egregious (like the latest call of duty)”
“CoD is a different beast though”
“prevented me from trying out this years Call of Duty”
“I don't enjoy Call of Duty, but I'll play it from time to time so I can chat with my brother”
“dynamically alter in game loot mechanics to get people to purchase in game items”
“The single player campaign is considered as one of the best in FPS games ever.”
“Under Infinity Ward they created MW2, which is maybe the only digestible COD game ever made.”
“Hell, even Call of Duty somehow underperformed”
“I've loaded modern games off spinning rust for almost all of the past decade, including such whoppers as Siege, FS2020, CoD”
“I stopped playing CoD mainly because I was tired of juggling disk space to try to play it even casually.”
“Call of Duty installer now takes additional 131GB of space on the disk”
“I no longer play Fifa or CoD mostly because of the kernel anti-cheat.”
“Most couch gamers want their GTA or Call of Duty, which, if I read correctly, this will not run.”
“the rest of the family is getting tired of COD's ceaseless churn”
“nothing even compares in that regard, I know the game is a shameless skin store”
“makes skins heavily inspired by other franchises they don't own”
“Roughly the same mechanics but much more commercialised, playing to the psychological weaknesses of players.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.