Black Ops 6 is massively outselling last year's Call of Duty even though it's on Game Pass, which probably tells you how Modern Warfare 3 went

It's even better if you call it by it's number of release in the whole chronological series, which would make this call of duty 52.

This is Call of Duty 22.

If you mean singleplayer campaigns: as far back as you can stomach the graphics of.

If you actually want good campaigns, Black Ops 1 is fuckin legendary. World At War was also great. As is Modern Warfare (2007) and Modern Warfare 2(2009). Modern Warfare 3 (2011) was also good. Black Ops 2 was good. I wouldn't bother with any further Black Ops games- one of them doesn't even have a campaign iirc.

For the much much newer titles, Modern Warfare (2019) was good. Modern Warfare (2022) was also solid. Modern Warfare 3 is 'last years title' being referred to in the OP.

None of these are narrative masterpieces exactly- the closest is probably the Black Ops games. With that said, they're very much 'action movie' videogames. Tons of crazy set pieces, unique segments, and then the cutscenes that usually tie together a reasonable enough plot to be interesting.

If you mean multiplayer: honestly just jump into Black Ops 6. None of the older titles are likely to be a great experience at this point. Or just spend your time on a better game lol

I'm not super into CoD and the last one I played (not counting remasters) were Advanced Warfare campaign and some Black Ops 3 multiplayer. They were okay but at that point I was quite tired with the series. I started BO6 on my XSX and the single player campaign is quite fun. I probably won’t be touching multiplayer on the account of being old.

The thing about CoD campaigns is that you have to suspend your disbelief and go with the flow of what game is throwing at you. There's a lot of scripted scenes where you just have to push through to progress to next scripted scene. If you play to exploit that you won’t get much enjoyment. Treat it like a amusement park ride and it’ll treat you with bombastic set pieces.

I’m not sure if I’m missing anything lore-wise. Black Ops 1&2 which I played were heavy on spy / CIA stuff, plot twists and I enjoyed them a lot. So far I’m just assuming BO6 is cryptic on purpose like older ones so it doesn’t bother me that I jumped without playing previous ones.

Technically CoD games have always been rather accomplished with nice visuals while targeting 60fps (but not making a big deal out of dropping to 50 or so). BO6 looks very good.

Overall it’s not some revolutionary or overly ambitious game but it’s quite competent equivalent of a popcorn flick.

If you've never played a CoD at all, I would recommend just playing the campaign (might be buggy atm though). It usually teaches all the necessary skills in order to be at least of some use in PvP, even when you aren't a pro in shooters.

Other than that, the Zombies mode is nice.

The original modern warfare or original black ops is a great place to start. Sadly you'll never experience the way multiplayer was back then but the campaigns are pretty good

CoD 2. Best campaign of the series imo. But it is a very different game from anything since MW. And of course it is some 20 years old by now.

Would you pay 70€ for DLC that was repackaged into a standalone game.