Top 20 Best Call of Duty Missions of All Time

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 20 Call of Duty Missions of All time.

For this list, we’re examining the best missions in the franchise that are full of iconic moments.

Let us know what YOUR favorite mission is in the comment section below.

This was when you knew for sure that the Call of Duty you were playing was truly special and a cut above what you had played before. The atmosphere, graphics, and gameplay all make a great first impression, and when the ship begins to go down, the escape sequence is the icing on the cake. While it is a reasonably short mission, the structure and pacing of it are perfect. We get to know a little more about Price’s personality, and it gives us our first taste of live combat. We’re sure that the opening shot of the ship on the black water is one we’ll remember for years to come.

Infinite Warfare has a bad rap, but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Take this mission, for example It can be summed up with one word; epic. Its opening moments of traversing the asteroid that has been knocked out of orbit, forcing you to stay sheltered from the sun, which is literally disintegrating everything, is intense. Its horror-themed search through the facility makes your heart pound and its action-packed gunplay makes your palms sweat, all culminating in one intense journey. While full of explosions and firefights, the mission's end does have a moment of sadness and loss. It has everything a great Call of Duty mission needs.

The opening scene of this mission is reminiscent of All Ghillied Up, only this time it goes horribly wrong. Makarov knows you’re here, and the plan falls to pieces. What follows is an action-packed escape sequence as we try and get Soap to safety. The music builds to an emotional crescendo until Soap passes away. If you had played the first two games, you probably shed a tear at this point. We’re rewarded with a revelation soon after in which we get to discover a lot of Yuri’s past that was previously left in the dark.

Seeing the genuine fear of a comrade doing whatever he can to get away in the opening scene definitely sends a chill down our spines. Reznov’s narration, accompanied by the music, adds depth to the struggle you’re facing, not just throughout the mission, but the entire game. The sniper vs. sniper segment, while intense, actually feels like a break, as we momentarily forget about the despair and horrors of our surroundings. You can’t have a Call of Duty game without a great sniper section, and these are scattered throughout the mission.

Reliving this moment may be painful, so we’ll get through it together. While the ending twist is devastatingly sad, with the music masking our cries, it’s not the only highlight here. Battling through the smoke at the start of the level adds an extra level of precaution to your moves, but when you get to the estate, your search for Makarov has you blowing up doors like there’s no tomorrow. The game slows down as you pick your shots, giving the experience a real cinematic feel.

We see the events on Rebirth Island play out from two perspectives; Mason’s and Hudson’s. Hudson’s is the highlight. Nova 6 is deployed, and you’re forced to witness horrible visuals of people exposed to the gas who begin to slowly and agonizingly die in front of you. The gameplay element of fighting in the gas is a unique one, in which you can take permanent damage to your gas mask. This raises the stakes quite a bit and forces you to take extra caution. The revelation at the end is the real highlight here, as we discover that Reznov was never really with Mason, and it was all in his head.

This is arguably one of the most exciting missions in the franchise. Call of Duty is known to have shorter missions sprinkled throughout its campaign, where we take control of someone we haven’t played as before, who unfortunately meets their demise, but boy, do we put up a fight before we go down here. It’s not often you get to fight in a crashing plane, floating while dodging bullets. The awe of seeing it crumple before exploding will make you forget you have to shoot bad guys, as you’ll be so engrossed by the spectacle.

It’s annoying being caught out in the rain, especially when it’s raining helicopters. In this mission, we get to see an EMP take effect from space before we’re brought back down to the ground in which you have to literally dodge falling helicopters as they explode next to you. The fact that your optics are down and that you’re traversing through a thunderstorm accompanied by the sky’s redness provides for one atmospheric experience. There is a sense of dread and isolation throughout the entire squad, and it’s only until we complete the mission, do we realize we’d been holding our breath for most of it.

We all knew this one was coming. An action game needs a great villain, and we need to despise him. No Russian is a mission so controversial; you can skip it altogether if you wanted. Undercover, we walk with Makarov and his crew as they open fire on unarmed civilians in an airport. Its disturbing visuals of dozens of innocents dying is uncomfortable to witness, but the mission succeeds in making us loathe the villain, and it motivates us to stop him. This brings us into the narrative and immerses us like no previous game in the series has done before.

With its updated graphics and realistic gunplay, the Modern Warfare reboot felt like no other Call of Duty, and a lot of it is thanks to missions like these. Slow, nerve-wracking, and ominous, the complex infiltration is reminiscent of scenes in Zero Dark Thirty and real-life terrorist raids. The limited field of view and the night vision makes it look almost realistic, and not knowing if someone, seemingly not a threat, will pull a gun on you just adds to the experience. Unfortunately, you don’t find your target here, so mission failed, we’ll get ‘em next time.

Putting you back in the boots of Captain John Price, this Die Hard inspired mission places you outside a skyscraper in a final attempt to kill the series' main antagonist, Makarov. Juggernauting to the top, Price is eventually forced to hightail it against the first horseman, barely catching up to and crash landing his escape chopper. Surviving the crash landing, Price gains just enough fury after witnessing the death of series veteran Yuri that he kills Makarov in a way that’s more than a little bit over the top.That deserves a smoke break I guess.

Perhaps the closest thing to an innovation for the franchise in years, this mission has the player's character, Mitchell, and his arrested unit of rogue PMCs breaking out of prison. Not so original? Well, what if you had a broken left arm, leaving you unable to reload? That's right, in this penultimate level, you're as dependent on cover, ammo conservation, and those stupid AI teammates that keep blocking your shots more than ever. However, in the end, you do reel in a sweet killstreak-esque reward when you finally step into the boots of a bad-ass Aliens style powerloader.

Ever wanted to try ice climbing without having to worry about the consequences of a slip-up? Probably not, but this mission comes close to achieving that nonetheless. Playing as Roach, you and Captain MacTavish, er, "Soap", infiltrate your way into a Russian ultranationalist base in the Kazakhstan mountains to retrieve the module of a downed satellite. Though the ‘muppets’ don't initially spot you as you ghost your way in, things go south pretty quickly after your objective is completed. That’s when you end up pulling a James Bond like escape by snowmobile, complete with a crazy jump at the end – symbolically leaving all semblance of reality in your wake.

Do you guys remember that edge-of-your-seat bloodbath of an opening in "Saving Private Ryan"? Well, in this rigorous mission from the successor to the original game, you get a chance to re-witness the whole chaotic affair. If you’ve seen the movie or know your history, you probably don’t need me to explain how horrible your odds of surviving are. Well, the good news is if you don’t succeed, the bad guys will win and the world will be over, no big deal. We get to relive this moment again in Call of Duty: World War II with updated visuals, and its horrors are not something we can get used to.

Developers of the first Call of Duty in a nutshell - hey guys, let's have our players charge through a village. Eh...not exciting enough. Oh, how about having them charge through a heavily defended village in flames! Eh, still missing something. I got it: heavily defended village, in flames, tasked with destroying anti-aircraft guns - and at night! Now we're talking. While not the most exhilarating of missions by today's standards, this level from the original World War II shooter that started it all was noted for its then cutting-edge design, hearth-racing objectives, and overall intensity that had PC gamers everywhere forget they're just playing a game.

Serving as the halfway mark of the campaign, "Karma" puts you in control of David Mason. In this op, you and fellow SEALs Harper and Salazar initiate a covert-response mission in the floating city, Colossus, in a race to retrieve the weapon known only to you as "Karma" before the enemy PMCs. Oh, did we say weapon? Seconds after reaching her, secondary antagonist, DeFalco, arrives with mercenaries, who duress her into surrendering quietly. Except, things don't stay quiet for too long when they start unloading on civilians and all hell breaks loose in Paradise. Also make sure you get to Karma before DeFalco does if you don’t want to get the bad ending.

In this mission, marking the conclusion of the game's first act, things just got wildly real when Russia declares war on the U.S. following the massacre in "No Russian". Launching a full-scale invasion on the East Coast, U.S. Army Rangers are deployed as first responders. Though the premise is essentially a carbon-copy of "Red Dawn", this pulse-pounding and well-paced mission beautifully showcased the elements of chaos, destruction, and desperation that would transpire in such an ordeal. Besides, we all knew this list wouldn't be complete without mentioning at least one mission with poor Private Ramirez in it. No, but seriously, Ramirez! Do everything!

A lot of Call of Duty is a linear experience, but this mission changes the formula. You have a large open area and a level of freedom in which sites to visit to complete your objective. You’ll die in a couple of shots, so you’ll need to take advantage of the dark and go slow. It’s incredibly satisfying taking out enemies from the shadows. If you’re getting a bit antsy with the stealth aspects, you eventually get to run from an attack chopper, and you’re granted a nostalgic line from Price.

In the words of our World War II comrade himself: every journey begins with a single step. And while this may not have been the first mission of the narrative masterpiece that is Black Ops, it was certainly the first step onto a road of jaw-dropping cinematic-esque moments, both later in the mission and after. Doing everything from slinging inferno shots onto watchtowers, to bringing down an attack chopper with a harpoon, to Terminator 2: Judgment Day-ing your way to freedom via minigun mayhem and motorcycle run, this bold and exhilarating undertaking from the laborers of the real life Soviet forced labor camp was prison rioting done right!

Set within the Chernobyl exclusion zone fifteen years prior to events of the game proper, "All Ghillied Up" flashbacks to the days of a then Lieutenant John Price, tasked with assassinating antagonist Imran Zakhaev with a younger Captain Baseplate. Geared in full-body Ghillie suits, this mission had players literally holding their breaths as they moved past a heavily armed militia to reach their HVT. Though not the most testosterone-driven mission in all of Call of Duty, this "less is more" approach beautifully hit its marks with adrenaline pumping moments, not with typical explosions and gunfights, but with beautifully orchestrated tension.