Every Call of Duty: Black Ops Game Ranked By Metascore

With the recent release of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, we thought it would be a good idea to put together a list of every major Call of Duty: Black Ops title and rank them all by their given metascore on Metacritic! Just for clarification, this list each major title in the series will not include multiple rankings for the same entry based on platform regardless of varying scores, so the Wii version of Call of Duty: Black Ops will not be ranked, but the PS3 version of the same game will since it has a higher score. We also will not be covering any of the DLC scores for any titles (that might come later!) Each game will appear only once with the highest score it has received on whatever platform that may be, but we’ll make sure to tell you on which platform it ranked the highest. With that out of the way, let’s get into ranking every major Call of Duty: Black Ops title based on its metascore!

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (Xbox One)

The most recent entry into the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War reached a meager 77 metascore on Xbox based on a total of 20 critic reviews. While this may not seem like very many reviews to judge a game on, the user score isn’t doing the game any more favors as it boasts an even less impressive 2.9 user score – based on 312 user reviews. Yikes. It seems like all across the board, no one is particularly thrilled with Cold War even after the massive hype built up around the legendary Zombies game mode.

4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (PS4)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 for PS4 currently has a fairly impressive metascore of 81 based on 87 total critic reviews. This was the first game in the series that introduced a new momentum-based chained-movement system that enabled players to move throughout the environment with style and finesse with the ability to use controlled thrust jumps in-air, sliding, wall runs, and even mantling abilities. While Cold War had a very low user score, this entry into the series has a better, albeit still disappointing, user score of 4.9 with a total of 2481 user reviews. It’s a shame this game wasn’t very well-received on Metacritic as new movement systems typically tend to be appreciated by players.

3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (PS3)

Widely regarded by many players as one of the greatest Call of Duty games of all time, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 comes in at #3 on the list based on its metascore of 83. I really thought this one was going to be higher than this, but even with its user score it still only has a 5.7 based on 1085 total user reviews. Maybe this isn’t as widely beloved as we thought it was? I’m sure that the nostalgia of the game comes into play when you take into consideration the nearly perfected Zombies mode that came with this title. Let’s be honest, the only real reason most people play any of the games in this series is for the famous Zombies mode and Zombies in Black Ops 2 is pretty much as perfect as you can ask for. Other than that, yeah, I can imagine why the game doesn’t have a higher user score.

2. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (Xbox One)

Shockingly enough, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is #2 on the list of every major game in the series with a metascore of 85! Released in 2018, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 saw the introduction of the very first Call of Duty battle royale known as “Blackout” and was the product of the massive popularity of other battle royale games such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Blackout turned out to actually end up being more popular than the Zombies mode from this game, though was quickly replaced by Warzone, introduced as part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare which eventually merged with the release of Cold War. Unfortunately for the game, it also received a poor user score with a 4.1 based on a total of 399 user ratings.

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)

Coming in at #1, we’ve got the classic Call of Duty: Black Ops for PS3. The very first installment in the soon-to-be most popular Call of Duty franchise of all time, Black Ops was the pioneer of the classic Zombies game mode, though originally Zombies was introduced with Call of Duty: World at War, however Black Ops really brought the mode into the mainstream spotlight. Released on November 9, 2010, the game currently boasts an impressive 88 metascore based on 58 critic reviews. It also has a mixed user score of 6.7 based on 1269 current user ratings. This game specifically holds a special place in my heart, since it was the very first Call of Duty game that I had ever played. I was stuck playing the demo for a solid 3 months until my parents let me buy the game. 3 months!!! Overall, I really enjoyed the game – the Zombies, the Multiplayer, the Campaign; they were all good and it’s no surprise that this entry is #1 on this list.

There you have it folks! Our list for every major title in the Black Ops series ranked from worst to best based on each games’ metascore! Do you agree with this list? Personally, I was kind of shocked about some of the placements. I guess you can’t really argue with the reviews though. I’m sure that with time and more entries into the series, this list will eventually need to be updated. I can imagine a remaster of at least two or three of these titles will be announced sometime in the future. Who knows, maybe Treyarch is already in the middle of developing a remaster that we don’t know about? Though they are probably knee-deep in development for a brand new entry into the series, so a remaster may not be on their radar anytime soon. Now I want to go play some Zombies…