Highlights
- Perks in Call of Duty multiplayer offer various in-game benefits, with some being unfairly dominant and overpowered over the years.
- The Commando perk in Modern Warfare 2 allowed players to lunge absurd distances for melee kills, making it one of the most broken elements in the franchise.
- Perks like Stopping Power, One Man Army, and Martyrdom in earlier Call of Duty titles were also overpowered, significantly impacting gameplay and disrupting the flow of matches. Dead Silence's quiet footsteps can be a game changer, though unlike the other entries on this list, it is divisive and not unanimously disliked.
The multiplayer of Call of Duty is one of its most defining elements, having dominated the world of online shooters for close to two decades. Many believe that these experiences peaked once the IP began adding more complex mechanics to multiplayer, with perks being one of the most iconic additions.
Perks offer a huge range of in-game benefits in multiplayer Call of Duty, with players having to unlock and choose a small selection of them for in-game use. CoD has taken many liberties in trying to perfect perks as a mechanic over the years, leading to some inclusions that were massively overpowered. Across the hundreds of perks that have been at the forefront of CoD's multiplayer since 2007's Modern Warfare, some stand a head and shoulders above the rest in terms of being unfairly dominant.
Call of Duty's Most OP Perks
Many Call of Duty perks remained consistently powerful across several releases, whereas some only had one title where they really stood out as overpowered. This was the case in the original Modern Warfare 2, where the Commando perk cemented itself as one of the most broken elements that the franchise has ever seen.
Commando greatly increased the effective melee range of the player who equipped it, with instant melee kills still being a core feature of Call of Duty at the time of MW2. Players quickly found that the range increase granted by Commando was ludicrous, being able to lunge absurd distances to attack enemies who had no time to react. The Pro version of the perk also made players immune to fall damage, only increasing its dominance in MW2.
Stopping Power is another perk that was extremely powerful in MW2, also appearing in the first Modern Warfare and World at War in a similarly overpowered state. The perk was defined by its simplicity and broad usefulness by increasing the damage dealt by any player who had it equipped. Stopping Power could turn a huge range of weapons into feared killing machines, with the benefits of increased damage making the perk an utter necessity for the vast majority of players. One Man Army is another broken option from the original MW2, as it allowed players to switch classes without respawning. In a game with laughably strong grenade launcher attachments, having infinite noob tubes was devastating.
Even perks that felt more like gimmicks in past CoDs could still be unbalanced, with Modern Warfare and World at War's Martyrdom perk being the best example of this. Martyrdom would drop a live grenade on a player's body whenever they were killed, which would often lead to quick and easy kills that could disrupt the flow of a match. The faster-paced nature of MW and WaW made Martyrdom even more impactful, with players usually being close to a killed enemy and falling right into the perk's trap, leading to its overpowered reputation.
One of the most controversial Call of Duty perks ever is Dead Silence, which has appeared with some tweaks in a huge range of the franchise's titles. This perk significantly quietens the footsteps of a player, completely eliminating a lot of the worry behind sprinting by allowing players to play aggressively with no drawbacks. As footstep volume has become such an important feature of competitive shooters in recent years, the utility behind Dead Silence is unparalleled, and has caused headaches for Activision as a result. This is evidenced in how the perk has been controversially reworked into a field upgrade in the Modern Warfare reboot, giving players only a brief taste of Dead Silence per match.
With Call of Duty showcasing so many perks over the years, it is no wonder that many have been chastised as overpowered. While more recent games have done well to create a better sense of balance between perks, some of the franchise's most beloved titles were littered with unfairly dominant perks that have gone down in history.