The 20 Dumbest Gimmicks Call of Duty Has Ever Tried on Us

Call of Duty has spent years dressing up minor features as game changing innovations, only for most of them to disappear without a trace. I put together a countdown of the 20 dumbest gimmicks in the franchise's history, and the pattern became obvious fast: if a feature never comes back after its debut, that is usually the biggest sign it was a gimmick all along. As I put it, "if it never comes back, I think it's the big G." If something was actually a good idea, developers tend to build on it and evolve it. When it just vanishes after one game, that is a dead giveaway.

This one matters for fans because so much of Call of Duty's marketing leans on these exact kinds of promises every single year, and looking back at which ones actually stuck around says a lot about what the franchise really values versus what it just uses to sell the next game.

Black Ops 3's Nightmares Mode and Modern Warfare 2's DMZ were content dumps that never came back

At number 20 is Nightmares Mode, the Black Ops 3 exclusive that turned the campaign into a giant zombies map with an altered story and undead enemies. I thought it was a genuinely cool idea, but almost nobody played it, and it never got post launch support or a return in any later game, which tells me it was mostly there to pad out day one content.

Number 19 is DMZ, Call of Duty's attempt at an extraction shooter in Modern Warfare 2. It had real merit and a passionate community, but the mode never got the post launch support fans expected, and once the Modern Warfare 2 season ended, DMZ disappeared. There is a rumor that it could return in Modern Warfare 4, but that is not confirmed, and I think the entire DMZ community would agree that Infinity Ward never intended to support the mode as intensely as it needed.

Specialist abilities and weather variants tried to copy hero shooters and mix up multiplayer maps

Specialist abilities ran from Black Ops 3 through Infinite Warfare and Black Ops 4 with varying success. In Black Ops 3 they were a fun bonus weapon rather than a core part of multiplayer, and by Black Ops 4 they were trivial enough that the game added a Barebones playlist specifically to disable them. I think Call of Duty was chasing the hero shooter crowd from games like Destiny and Overwatch without wanting to sacrifice its core gameplay loop, which meant the abilities could never be strong enough to matter, and they were gone entirely starting with Modern Warfare 2019.

At number 17 are Black Ops 4's weather variants, where a hyped new DLC map turned out to just be an old map with different weather or lighting. Some, like a nighttime Firing Range or Seaside Sunset, were genuinely cool. Others, like Arsenal Sandstorm or a flooded Jungle, were nearly unplayable. Other shooters had done weather changes without letting it wreck the map, and this never returned after Black Ops 4.

Cold War's score streak system and Vanguard's combat pacing were marketing buzzwords that fizzled

Number 16 is Black Ops Cold War's score streak system, marketed as a brand new way to reward every kind of player, from slayers to objective players to less skilled players trying to catch up. In practice it was a lame feature most people did not enjoy, and it never returned after Cold War.

Number 15 is combat pacing from Vanguard, which promised tactical, assault, and blitz matchmaking options. In reality all it changed was the number of players in the lobby, something you often only noticed by checking the scoreboard. It never came back after Vanguard.

Free Run challenge courses and Black Ops 4's operator mods never got the support they promised

Number 14 is Free Run, the Black Ops 3 bonus mode built around obstacle courses testing your mastery of the exo suit. It was interesting at first, but Treyarch never released any additional DLC courses, so once you finished them, there was no reason to go back.

Number 13 is operator mods, heavily marketed in Black Ops 4 as a way to shake up the sandbox. They ended up being just a handful of weapon specific attachments that cost extra Pick 10 slots. Some were cool, some were overpowered, but Treyarch never expanded on them with new mods or multiple mods per weapon.

Riley the dog and Ghost's field orders overpromised and underdelivered

Number 12 is Riley the dog from Call of Duty Ghosts, who was front and center in every trailer, making it seem like the dog would be a constant companion in campaign and multiplayer. In reality Riley barely appears in the campaign and is just a kill streak in multiplayer.

Number 11 is field orders, also from Ghosts, bonus objectives that popped up during matches for a special reward. Sometimes that meant something fun like turning into Michael Myers or the Predator, but other times it meant a free chem strike or a powerful kill streak you got without earning it, including the ability to get a kill streak without actually working for it. Field orders never returned after Ghosts.

Omni-Movement and jetpacks show how Call of Duty's movement gimmicks fade fast

Number 10 is Omni-Movement in Black Ops 6. Being able to sprint and dive in any direction is genuinely cool, but based on what is known about Black Ops 7's movement system, I think Treyarch did not build multiplayer around it nearly as much as the marketing suggested, outside of a few specific maps.

Number nine is jetpacks and advanced movement overall. Advanced Warfare's maps were clearly designed around exo suits, but by Black Ops 3 and Infinite Warfare, advanced movement felt like an afterthought, since many maps and even remade classic maps could be played fine without jetpacks. They were removed entirely once 2019's Modern Warfare arrived. I respect the attempt, but jetpacks went from a core feature to a gimmick fast, which is a shame given how well games like Titanfall and Splitgate showed advanced movement can work when the whole game is designed around it.

Modern Warfare's interactive doors and Vanguard's blindfire and wall smashing

Number eight is interactive doors, added in Modern Warfare 2019 as a huge part of map design, with Infinity Ward apparently expecting players to use them tactically. Instead, most players found doors an annoying inconvenience, and their presence has been noticeably reduced in every game since.

Number seven is blindfire from Vanguard, letting you fire from behind cover similar to Gears of War. Since Call of Duty players rarely take cover in the first place, hardly anyone used it, and it does not appear to have returned since.

Number six is wall smashing, also from Vanguard, where wooden walls on certain maps could be destroyed by gunfire, explosives, or by simply sprinting into them at full speed. There was even an achievement called "Oh yeah" for smashing through five walls at full speed.

World War II's Divisions and Black Ops 3's attachment variants took away customization instead of adding it

Number five is the Divisions system from Call of Duty WWII, meant to bridge traditional custom classes and a class based system. Instead players got a single basic training perk while the rest of their abilities were locked to their chosen division, plus certain weapon bonuses tied to specific divisions. The system was confusing at launch and had to be massively overhauled a few months later, and Divisions never returned in a later game.

Number four is attachment variants from Black Ops 3, purely cosmetic tweaks to small details on certain attachments that were nearly impossible to notice in a match. They were marketed as a big customization feature, but really they just made it harder to pull the attachment you actually wanted from a supply drop, and they never returned.

Ghost's Satcom replaced the UAV in the sky with a box on the ground, and nobody asked for it

Number three is the Satcom from Call of Duty Ghosts, which put the UAV on the ground in a physical box instead of in the sky, seemingly to make the game feel more team based and tactical. It never returned after Ghosts, and I say good riddance, UAVs belong in the air.

Modern Warfare's operators are just character models we barely notice

Number two is operators, introduced in the Modern Warfare reboot. I am convinced they exist mainly so Activision could sell full outfits instead of individual customization pieces the way Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3 used to allow. Nobody actually cares about the operator as a character unless it is a legacy figure like Woods or Ghost. What players care about is the outfit the operator is wearing, not the model underneath it.

Fish AI takes the crown as the dumbest gimmick in Call of Duty history

Number one is Fish AI, the infamous line from the Call of Duty Ghosts marketing campaign. During that promotional run, developers described the work put into underwater fish behavior, saying, "We've added fluid dynamics, interactive smoke, and also added an AI system to it. So, we have fish move out of the way when you get close to them." That quote later became a well known meme, and for good reason. Fish moving out of a swimmer's way had already been shown in games like Super Mario 64 decades earlier, and I never once thought about fish in Call of Duty until Infinity Ward brought it up themselves. Out of every gimmick on this list, Fish AI is the clearest case of a franchise convincing itself that players cared about something they never asked for.

Which of these gimmicks do you think was the dumbest, and is there one that should have made this list?