If there’s any license to possibly define the FPS genre, chances are it could beCall of Duty. It’s thanks to the action-packed stories, set pieces, and multiplayer modes of the bestCall of Dutygames that players continue to come back to the franchise for good ol’ fashion FPS fun. However, while some people criticize the series for bing a bit repetitive, each game has its high moments.
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For players looking for a particularCall of Dutygame to play, perhaps a great way to evaluate the worthiness of the entries' single-player modes is to assess their opening missions. After all, it’s the opening mission that will most likely determine the overall mood and plot of the game in question. However, just what are thebest opening missions in theCall of Dutyfranchise?
7Fog Of War (Modern Warfare, 2019)
The 2019Call of Duty: Modern Warfarereboot offers a masterclass of both gameplay and storytelling. Its opening mission, “Fog Of War”,doesn’t idle and sends players straight into the action, opening with a cutscene where Al-Qatala insurgents commit a suicide bombing in the middle of London.
“Fog Of War” officially begins exactly a day before this event, where players control CIA Operations Officer Alex in an operation in Verdansk, Kastovia where they’re supposed to intercept a shipment of chlorine gas before it goes to Uzbekistan. The mission goes downhill quickly, and an injured Alex and CIA Station Chief Kate Laswellcall Cpt. John Price, informing him that terrorists have acquired chlorine gas, to which Price suggested that London could be a potential target. This opening mission cuts to the chase immediately, reminding players just how tenseCODcan be.
6Black Tuesday (Modern Warfare 3, 2011)
Concluding the climactic build-up of this subseries ofgames isCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and it shows the desperate efforts of the world’s militaries to stop the Ultranationalists in the height of World War 3. Players get sent to the action straight away in “Black Tuesday”; while it is essentially the second mission, it acts as the first playable one, given how “Prologue” served as a quick retelling of the preceding games’ events.
Named after the New York Stock Exchange crash in 1929, “Black Tuesday"takes players to a quite literal “crash” in New York under siege by the Russian Ultranationalists. Playerscontrol Sgt. Derek “Frost” Westbrookas they have to make their way through war-torn Manhattan to get evacuated at the NYSE, only for their Black Hawk to engage in an aerial dogfight against two Hinds.
5Demolition (Call of Duty 2, 2005)
Call of Duty 2was the entry that put the franchise on the map,cementing itself as one of the best WW2 shooters of all time. The campaign highlights the efforts of three World War 2 soldiers conquering insurmountable odds, and Red Armynewcomer Vasili Ivanovich Koslovquickly discovers the horrors of war just after he completes basic training, having learned that Germans are planning to attack their outpost.
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In “Demolition”, Koslov and his companions are assigned to take over a German outpost, and from there set out to destroy another nearby outpost. Thing is, the Germans were quick to mount a counter-attack and overwhelm Koslov, forcing his squad to do a human wave charge to get to their destination before finally blowing it up. Despite its nature as an early-game mission, the rather steep difficulty of “Demolition” highlights the challenge players would face throughout the rest of the campaign.
4Pyrrhic Victory (Black Ops 2, 2012)
WithCall of Duty: Black Ops 2being a more personal take on covert missions, the game stars Lieutenant Commander David “Section” Mason in their mission to stop arms dealer Raul Menendez. However, the opening mission, “Pyrrhic Victory”, serves as a blast to the past, this time starringBlack Opsprotagonist Alex Mason as his friend Jason Hudson calls him out of retirement. Everything begins when Alex accompanies Hudson to rescue their old friend, Frank Woods, who is being held captive in Angola by Menendez at the height of the country’s civil war.
The campaign opens tragically as Alex fails to rescue a comrade in a burning Buffel, with his allies remarking that they need to prepare for an impending assault. After fierce combat involving helicopters against tanks, Alex manages to rescue Woods who was trapped in a shipping container alongside rotting corpses. When they infiltrate a nearby outpost, Alex has a showdown with themain antagonist Menendez, resulting in the latter getting shot in the face and permanently scarring him. While “Pyrrhic Victory"alludes to a victory at a high cost, the mission doesn’t declare its reference outright, bringing players back to the thrilling part of theBlack Opsseries when they had to decipher just what on Earth was going on.
3Team Player (Modern Warfare 2, 2009)
Coming from the game with the infamousNo Russianstage,Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2is riding on a lot of expectations given the success of its predecessors, and it wastes no time showing how the Russian Ultranationalists have begun their assault in Europe. The first act stars PFC Joseph Allen, serving as the player’s introduction to the game, primarily during his time undercover as Alexei Borodin within Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov’s cell.
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Before this takes place, PFC Allen is sent straight to action after training in “Team Player”, where things begin as soon as their vehicle is destroyed by an RPG-7. Suffering from shellshock, Allen and his comrades struggle to fend off an enemy assault as they try to make their way to a rallying point for a counter-offensive. This marks Allen’s fateful meetingwith General Shepherd, who would soon direct him to his undercover mission.
2D-Day (WW2, 2017)
While it features a global cast of characters throughout events from 1940 to 1945,Call of Duty: WW2tells the story of Private Red Daniels as he joins the renowned 1st Infantry Division to secure the counter-offensive against the Nazis. Its first mission, “D-Day”, encapsulates the sheer amount of anxiety and depth the rest of the story would bring. Loosely following the events of actual D-Day on July 24, 2025, players, as Pvt. Daniels, accompany the rest of the 1st Infantry Division as they arrive near Omaha beach.
There, a surprise attack forces Daniels and his crew to fight a seemingly-impossible battle that they manage to turn in their favor. The sheer awesomeness of the level foreshadowed just how epic theWW2campaign would get.
1Operation 40 (Black Ops, 2010)
This is perhaps themost iconic opening mission inCall of Dutyas it lets players partake in an alternate history. “Operation 40"features an operation to assassinate Fidel Castro, juxtaposed as memories accessed during his iconic “numbers” interrogation that will be expanded at the end of the game. The mission is split into several parts, first with Mason and his team being found by the Cuban military as they talk to an informant, then Mason near Castro’s building at the start of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and then the successful assassination of Castro. Except it’s not Castro they assassinated, but rather his double. The mission ends with Mason being captured and then waking up to be interrogated by Russians.
