The 13 Worst Final Unlocks in Call of Duty History, From the FAD to the AMR9

It's all led to this. Over the last couple of weeks I've put together my lists of the 13 best starting guns, the 13 worst starting guns, and the 13 best final guns in Call of Duty history. This one is probably the list people have been waiting for: my ultimate, definitive ranking of the 13 worst, most useless, most disappointing final guns in the series.

These are the guns you had to grind for dozens of hours just to put on your class, and it was a complete waste of time. As with my best final unlocks list, I'm defining a final unlock as anything in the last 10 levels of the progression system. That definition seemed fair enough last time, so I'm using the same rule set again. Some people are going to be upset by this one. And if you're wondering where the classified SMG from Black Ops 1 lands, stick around, because I get to it near the top.

13. The FAD in Modern Warfare 3 had a fast fire rate and nothing else

Let's start strong. I know some of you swear by the FAD, and we've argued about it for a decade. As I put it: "some of you are weirdos. I love you, but you're weirdos." The FAD was the final assault rifle in the Modern Warfare 3 progression, and while it did have the fastest fire rate in its class, that's all it had going for it. It had terrible damage, weird, funky iron sights, a super ugly weapon model, and handling speeds that felt out of place.

I think you were supposed to use the FAD as if it were a heavy SMG. But in a game where you could use the MP7 and wipe the entire lobby 50 times without breathing, why would you pick the FAD? Just because you figured out how to make it work in your favour doesn't make it a good gun. For a final unlock, I needed it to be better, and there was zero reason to use it over the ACR or the MP7. To the FAD fans out there, you should be thanking me for putting it at 13.

12. The MP44 in Call of Duty 4 was a throwback that could not hold attachments

I think Infinity Ward may have added the MP44 as a way of saying thanks for sticking with them and trying out a new game. A little throwback weapon is a fun way to do that, I guess, but making that throwback a total letdown and also the final gun you unlock were pretty strange choices. The MP44 is genuinely horrible in the game, starting with the fact that it's the only weapon in Call of Duty 4 that can't hold attachments. You read that right.

It's also a worse version of the AK47. The damage profile is basically the same, but the fire rate is lower, the recoil is higher, and the iron sights are just bad, which matters when you can't put an optic on it. I think it was meant to be a fun little throwback because Call of Duty 4 was the first non World War II game Infinity Ward had ever developed, but I still don't think it was a good idea to make it a final unlock.

11. The MG34 in Modern Warfare 2019 had base stats no gunsmith build could excuse

Speaking of World War II throwback weapons, the MG34 is in Modern Warfare 2019 for that very reason. Some people have told me you can make some underrated builds with it. Okay, go make them. I've seen them. But there's no denying the base stats are bad, and if we're judging guns as they were out of the box, it belongs on this list.

The recoil was insane, the movement speeds were pretty bad, and there was a weird delay after you pulled the trigger, so you literally couldn't react quickly. If an enemy player snuck up on you, you were done. The time to kill was ridiculous once the bullets actually started coming out, but given how long it took to get the gun up to your eye and get the bullets flowing, it wasn't worth it. Just because you can make a decent gunsmith build doesn't mean the gun is good.

10. The Razorback in Black Ops 3 went from beta favourite to worst launch SMG

The Razorback was the best gun in the Black Ops 3 beta by a landslide, and I think in the alpha too. But Treyarch must have gotten spooked by how many people were using it in the early builds, because when the full release came around, they nerfed it hard. The damage falloff was insane. The launch version of the Razorback was by far the worst SMG in the game despite being the final unlock in its class, and despite how many balancing patches were released for Black Ops 3, they never really made it any better.

I guess you could say it's not the single worst SMG in the game anymore, since worse DLC weapons were added later. But when it comes to the launch lineup, I still think the Razorback sits at the bottom of the pack. That's crazy, because I remember how ridiculous it was in the early builds. The beta version was arguably a top five SMG in Black Ops history, but the version that shipped in the game was just sad.

9. The M1216 in Black Ops 2 lost out to the Remington and the KSG

Here we go. Some of you are going to tell me I'm using this thing wrong, and I respectfully, wholeheartedly disagree. There is absolutely no reason I'm going to use a weird rotating shotgun that "makes me want to watch a rotisserie chicken cook every four shots." People bring up its DPS. I don't care. I'm going to use the Remington, or I'm going to use the KSG.

Yes, those only fire one shot at a time. I literally don't care, because that one shot is enough to get the job done, and I don't get killed while I'm rotating the silly rotisserie function on the M1216. I don't know why some of you like this gun so much, and to be honest, I think you're trolling me. Two of the best shotguns in Black Ops history are right there, and you would choose the M1216? I don't believe it. I really don't.

8. The M60E4 in Modern Warfare 3 kept the M60's losing streak alive

I have a question: has the M60 ever been good? It feels like it has shown up in a million Call of Duty games and it's never good. For some reason, it was one of the last guns you unlocked in classic Modern Warfare 3, where once again it was not good. I will say it was slightly better than the Call of Duty 4 and Black Ops 1 versions, but not by a lot.

The handling speeds were abysmal, the recoil was bad, the damage was inconsistent, and "the reload animation took three business days to finish, not counting weekends." Light machine guns were already pretty unpopular in classic MW3, and the M60 just piled one problem on top of another. Sledgehammer thought you were going to feel rewarded for grinding to level 72 for this gun. It's actually kind of funny.

7. The SVT40 in Call of Duty WWII was still bad after its sights were fixed

Remember when Call of Duty WWII came out and the SVT40's iron sights literally did not work? They were broken. Then Sledgehammer finally fixed them so we could actually shoot straight, and that's when we realised the gun was still bad. For a final unlock, this was embarrassing: a semi automatic rifle with a very low fire rate cap, very bouncy recoil, and a damage profile that didn't even guarantee a two shot kill.

By that point in the progression, you already had several other semi automatic rifles, the M1 Garand and the M1 Carbine among them, all of which were far more consistent and easier to use. So why was the final semi automatic rifle the worst one? What's the point? Who was this gun made for?

6. The F2000 in Modern Warfare 2 was like the FAD, only worse

Strap in for this one. I've been fighting off the F2000 defenders for over a decade now, and I can take another batch. It was terrible. It was like the FAD, but even worse. Yes, the fire rate was high, but the damage profile was bad, the recoil was horrible, and on top of that you had some really ugly iron sights.

You also couldn't put a normal red dot sight on it, because Infinity Ward decided this gun needed its own unique reflex sight that was somehow even more obstructive than the default iron sights. And yet people wanted to argue that it was worth using over primary full auto weapons like the UMP45, the SCAR and the TAR. No, it wasn't. I would even take the PP2000 machine pistol over it. "That's definitive. Stop defending it. Seek help."

5. The Sawed Off Shotgun in Call of Duty WWII needed buff after buff and still disappeared

The final shotgun in the Call of Duty WWII progression had to be buffed over and over because it was laughable. And to my understanding, the buffs didn't do anything substantial, because you never saw it online. There are a few WWII players in the community, but I have to ask: when's the last time you saw anyone running the Sawed Off Shotgun? When's the last time somebody was caught actually trying to use it?

The range? There is no range. The ammo capacity is a joke, and the reload animation takes forever for no reason. So you shoot twice, you don't kill anybody, and you get locked into a reload that feels like it lasts the entire match. You finally get the gun loaded, you're ready to shoot again, and then you get killed and have to start over. This was the final shotgun in the progression. Sledgehammer was trolling. There's no way they actually thought this was a good gun.

4. The Spectre in Black Ops 1 wasn't half as good as an early SMG

I think it's funny that if you search for the Black Ops Spectre online, you'll mostly get results for the character Spectre from Black Ops 3. The internet literally erased this gun. Even when it came back in Black Ops 6, it was completely renamed and reworked. But as the Call of Duty historian, I remember the Black Ops 1 Spectre, and I very much remember how underwhelming it was.

You had to grind to level 41 to unlock it. When you finally put it in your class, you were treated to a gun with a really high fire rate, really low damage and very high recoil. Its time to kill couldn't even dream of competing with the AK74u. Old heads like me talk a lot about the SMGs in this game, and the Spectre is the prime example: the final SMG in the progression system wasn't half as good as one of the first SMGs you unlocked. There was actually one more classified SMG you unlocked even later, and that one was truly special in all the wrong ways.

3. The MK14 in Advanced Warfare was a three to four shot kill in a jetpack game

I like the M14. I've been seeing a lot of M14 versus Olympia memes recently, and while I'm not really sure why that started, I love it. To be clear, I'm team M14 all the way. But Sledgehammer did this gun dirty. The MK14 was the final assault rifle in Advanced Warfare, and they decided to make it the worst.

It hits for between 33 and 34 base damage, so if you don't land a headshot, it's a three to four shot kill, and it's semi automatic in a game where everybody has jetpacks. Even if you do land a headshot, it's still a two shot kill, so it's not like this was a precision weapon that could instakill to the head. To actually use it, you had to spam the trigger and hit your bunny hopping target anywhere from two to four times while they were spamming the BAL27 and the ASM1 at your face. Who at Sledgehammer ever playtested this? A gun like that in a jetpack game, as a final unlock?

2. The Kiparis in Black Ops 1 was the classified SMG that went into hiding

Call it what you want, the Kiparis was the classified SMG in Black Ops 1, and you could only unlock it by buying every other SMG in the game. It was somehow even worse than the Spectre. And just like the Spectre, Treyarch brought it back in a later Black Ops game, completely reworked and renamed, as if they were trying to erase the original from Call of Duty history. "This thing went into the witness protection program."

But I was there back in the day. I remember the grind to unlock the classified SMG, the mystery of it, and how excited I was to unlock something even more powerful than every other SMG in the game. What I got was awful. It had one of the fastest fire rates in the game, but only 20 rounds in the magazine, a two and a half second reload animation, and it could take up to five shots to kill. It was horrible, and it really made you feel like an idiot for even trying to grind for it.

1. The AMR9 in Advanced Warfare is my pick for the worst final unlock ever

The AMR9 was a five round burst SMG nobody liked, and you had to grind almost to the end of the progression just to get your hands on it. I guess Sledgehammer really thought it was going to be a fan favourite, because they also made it the only SMG in the game that could take underbarrel attachments. Who remembers that? Probably nobody, because you've probably erased the gun from your memory.

It went so badly that Sledgehammer made an entirely different SMG called the AMR9 for Modern Warfare 3 in 2023, almost like they were trying to overwrite this gun from history. I don't even know who signed off on a five round burst SMG. Burst fire SMGs are always a weird concept, because burst fire weapons just don't fundamentally play well at close range. Five rounds? What's the point? The AMR9 was bad, nobody liked it, and "I think it's the worst final level gun in COD history."

Which final unlock do you think was the biggest waste of a grind in Call of Duty history?