[20][21] Modern Warfare 2 is the direct sequel to Call of Duty 4 and continues the same storyline, taking place five years after the first game and featuring several returning characters including Captain Price and "Soap" MacTavish.

[24] Sledgehammer was aiming for a "bug free" first outing in the Call of Duty franchise, and had also set a goal for Metacritic review scores above 95 percent.

It is set in the Black Ops timeline,[26] separate from the other Modern Warfare games (however, characters such as Captain Price and other fan favorites from the series make a return).

Released after Modern Warfare, it returns to the World War II setting of earlier titles,[34] featuring the Pacific theater and Eastern front.

[41] Call of Duty: Black Ops II is the ninth main installment in the series, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision.

[50] Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the eleventh main installment in the series, developed by Sledgehammer Games with assistance from Raven Software and High Moon Studios.

[52] Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is the thirteenth main installment in the series, developed by Infinity Ward, and was published by Activision.

[59] Call of Duty: Warzone is an online battle royale game developed by Infinity Ward and Raven Software and released by Activision.

The game shares progression with, and uses gameplay items from Modern Warfare, as well as Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard following several integration updates to incorporate content from these titles.

Call of Duty: Strike Team is a first and third-person shooter game developed by The Blast Furnace and published by Activision for iOS and Android.

The game is set in 2020 with players tasked with leading a U.S. Joint Special Operations Team after the country "finds themselves in a war with an unknown enemy".

However, due to multiple legal issues that arose between Spark Unlimited, Electronic Arts, and Activision as well as other production problems, the game's draft and scripts never came to be.

Eventually, Activision deemed the pitch as more of an expansion than something entirely new, causing the company to reject the proposal and end their contract with Spark Unlimited shortly after.

[68] In 2010, after the fracturing of Infinity Ward and departure of Jason West and Vince Zampella, studio Neversoft was tasked by Activision to develop a sci-fi spinoff in the Call of Duty franchise, experimenting with low-gravity gameplay and other aspects of the engine.

The development was stopped because Infinity Ward needed help finishing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 due to the employee firings and departures in 2010.

The game was set in ancient Rome, and allowed players to take control of famous historical figure Julius Caesar, along with "low grunts", and officers of the Tenth Legion.

[93] Playing Call of Duty competitively is most popular in Europe and North America, with users who participate in tournaments and ladder matches daily.

[95] The Call of Duty Endowment (CODE) is a nonprofit foundation created by Activision Blizzard to help find employment for U.S. military veterans.

[99] In November 2014, the endowment launched the "Race to 1,000 Jobs" campaign to encourage gamers to donate money to and get involved in organizations that provide veterans with services.

[102] The Call of Duty series has been the subject of criticism for its "western-centric worldview, clumsy stereotyping and fetishisation of military power", according to The Guardian's Keith Stuart.

He criticized Activision Blizzard's claim that the games were apolitical, writing they "now pushed so deeply into the territory of right-wing fantasy that it reaches a point of inadvertent parody".

Kotaku's Alyssa Mercante, alongside several Muslim and Arab members of the games industry, thought the series "historically dehumanize[s]" the aforementioned groups with harmful stereotypes and narratives.

[107] Inverse's Gregory Lawrence felt that Call of Duty avoided accusations of Islamophobia by including "good" Muslim characters, but without further exploring their morality.

[108] Writing for The Progressive, Joe Mayall thought that the games' depiction of its antagonists as anti-Western was a "dangerous oversimplification", the same attitude of which had led to the United States' (US) participation in wars.

[107][109][110][111] TheGamer's Tessa Kaur condemned its portrayal of war that she thought depicted U.S. soldiers as heroes while having "no moral quandary", being "distinctively pro-intervention", and "perpetuat[ing] false beliefs" about real-world conflicts.

[110] Mayall wrote Call of Duty "exaggerates the effectiveness and cleanliness of militarism while understating the repercussions", leaving audiences with a heavily-skewed version of reality.

Kaur wrote Call of Duty was one example of entertainment media the authorities had exploited since World War II to promote certain narratives in their favor;[110] Mayall noted the Pentagon had consulted on "more than a thousand movies and dozens of video games".

[110][111][112] In an interview with The Guardian, Call of Duty: Black Ops II writer Dave Anthony said how he was contacted by a former Pentagon official to join an expert panel to discuss the future of warfare.

[112] Similarly, while plotting Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Michael Condrey of Sledgehammer Games revealed the studio had consulted with a Pentagon advisor to discuss the likeliest future military threat to the US.

West and Zampella, as well as several Infinity Ward staff that departed the studio alongside them to join Respawn, filed lawsuits against Activision related to unpaid royalties and bonuses.