Love it or hate it, Call of Duty is a titan in the first-person genre and is one of the largest game franchises across the globe. Now, over the years, many long-time fans have jumped ship on Call of Duty—most reasons being the games recycled formula, unrealistic combat, and I’m sure plenty of players were just fed up with being screamed at by 12-year-old kids who have no business playing M-rated games. But for all the reasons Call of Duty receives hate nowadays, those same reasons are why fans still love the games today... well, minus those 12-year-olds.

Fans of the franchise love the fast-paced combat. While unrealistic, it makes for a good arcade shoot em’ up, where you can turn off your brain and enjoy the destruction. And even though the formula is very much recycled at this point, the old saying goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—and Call of Duty’s been living by that motto for years. I stopped following the franchise years ago, and whenever I pick the game back up, even the later entries, I find that it’s just impossible to hide my fun.

But as much as I’d love to take a trip down memory lane and tell you stories of how I used to absolutely destroy with the Intervention in MW2, we’re going to have to leave that for another day. Today we’re going to visit the concepts that Activision never got to flesh out and implement into the Call of Duty franchise. Full games being scrapped, and innovative concepts that might just have chopped up that monotonous formula that we’re all used to.

25 Call Of Duty: Vietnam, The Game That Never Was

Call of Duty has been everywhere from Washington D.C. to WWII Germany, and we’ve even seen the franchise take us away from our own planet in zombie game modes. And yes, the game has even been the jungles in Vietnam, but did you know that a full-fledged game was in the works?

Rumors were breaking out everywhere, and long-time COD fans were finally happy to see the games return to realistic combat.

Call of Duty: Vietnam was internally called Fog of War, so it’s unclear what the actual title would’ve been, but personally I like COD Vietnam; just rolls off the tongue. The game was under development by Sledgehammer Games, and sources stated the game was taking place in the 1960s and 1970s, in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. The only other game in the COD franchise that visited Vietnam during that time was the original Black Ops, and the very few minutes we get of that, are absolutely phenomenal.

We get to hear The Rolling Stones, play a little Russian roulette, and it makes me sad to see that this game was scrapped. Apparently, the game even had up to 15 minutes playable, but with a different goal in mind, Activision offered Sledgehammer the opportunity to help Infinity Ward in the development of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Well, let’s hope Activision one day decides to revisit this game.

24 Get Out Your Croissants, Zombies Are Going To Paris!

So let’s get this out of the way on this entry, some of these scrapped concepts and ideas are going to be represented by unofficial art. Sorry, as much as we’d love to find the official artwork relating to some of these entries, we just don’t have the cred to get the exact artwork. But don’t worry, the details are still too juicy, as in this entry where we learned that a zombie map was scrapped for the original Black Ops, and it was intended to be in the catacombs of Paris, France.

Now, it’s anyone’s guess as to how complete the map was, but the crucial details were discovered by data miners who stumbled across Moon’s console codename which is "zombie_paris." Also, the game contains the image of the zombie, present in Der Riese, that was used originally in World at War.

So the original intentions of Treyarch were to have the 11th map of the acclaimed zombie franchise be set on in the catacombs of Paris. But instead of going in that direction they decided to take our heroes to the fan-favorite map Moon. It does suck that we lost out in exploring the catacombs of Paris, but if we lost Moon in the process I think myself, and most zombie fans would’ve been devastated. So I’m too conflicted to know what I want here.

23 The COD Game You’ve Never Heard Of: Call Of Duty Online

With a game as massively popular as COD, there rarely is a moment when one of the games slips through the cracks to avoid attention from the masses. If we exclude all the terrible mobile, and handheld releases then I can honestly say that I can’t even remember a moment when a COD game wasn’t thrown straight into the spotlight for it to be loved, or hated. It just doesn’t happen, the COD games are like the Michael Bay Transformers movies of the gaming world. You don’t just think they’re okay, you either love them, or you want to tear them apart.

So it’s weird to say that even we scratched our heads as we saw the title for Call of Duty Online.

Just what is this game, and how do we play it? Well, sad to say that the last part of that is impossible as COD Online is a game only exclusive to China. This free-to-play game was fully developed by Activision Shanghai and Raven Software and was launched on January 14, 2013, in closed beta.

The game allows the player to personalize weapons, characters, and equipment "with localized, unique content tailored to the needs and interest of gamers in China." COD Online also features maps from a myriad of old COD games, and from what we’ve seen it looks pretty cool, but kind of broken too. Like all the old COD games like MW1 and 2 were mashed together to make this Frankenstein-esque COD game.

22 No Third-Person Mode In COD Advanced Warfare

It would’ve been pretty interesting to see how Advanced Warfare would’ve shaped up if a third-person mode was added to the multiplayer, and it’s funny because this mode was pretty close to becoming a reality. Advanced Warfare was building a ton of hype around itself by promising to set itself apart from the crowd. Obviously, the game was going to feature a ton of new toys for players to test out in multiplayer, but it was the futuristic exoskeletons that looked to be radically changing the game’s formula.

But now that the game has come and gone, we all now see it as a two-bit Titanfall clone that instead of innovating, the game really just followed trends. What really would’ve set this game apart is truly something unexpected for the COD franchise, the allowance of third-person; and this was totally a thing that was going to happen.

When Michael Condrey, co-founder & former studio head of Sledgehammer Games was asked about the potential for a third person mode to the game, he stated that a third person viewpoint wasn’t planned, but also going on to say the feature wouldn’t be included “at launch.” And the coding for the mode still exists in the game files so hackers and data miners were actually able to enter the mode. But for the rest of us, we’re just stuck here wondering what could’ve been.

21 Modern Warfare 2’s Global Thermonuclear War Mode

This time it’s personal, because the game we’re talking about here is one of my favorite COD games, Modern Warfare 2. What can be said about this game that hasn’t already been said? The campaign improved upon MW1’s theatrics giving us heartfelt moments with characters like Ghost (R.I.P.), and gave us the infamous mission, and saying, “Remember, no Russian.” And the multiplayer. The multiplayer! This game was solid front to back.

Back in the days of middle school, when the tater tots were stale and the teachers smelled like mothballs, the one thing that got everyone through the day was going home to play MW2. Those were the good ol’ days, and the holy grail for skill in MW2 was always determined by two things: your “KD” and how many nukes you had. I only had three nukes in my illustrious career, but I’ll never forget the excitement of getting one. Hearing that eerie countdown timer followed by everyone on the map getting obliterated courtesy of you. But did you know that Infinity Ward had a game mode revolved around nukes that was eventually cut out?

The game mode comprised of each side trying to capture a tactical nuke in the middle of the map and once captured a countdown would start and last 40 seconds. When the countdown ends, you come away with a win but every player is obliterated in true MW2 fashion. Sad this one was left out.

20 A Tribal Staff In Modern Warfare Remastered?

Call of Duty used to be grounded in a cold, hard reality—but I think we all know those days are far behind us. Ever since the introduction of zombies in World at War, the franchise has been pretty open to bending history and bending the features in the game in an effort to make it more wacky and fun. For some, it was a turn-off, but many fans, especially zombie fans, came to love the eccentric side that the COD franchise was starting to show. Well, it seems that some of that wackiness was going to be featured in Modern Warfare Remastered with the tribal staff.

Now, the tribal staff has been added to the game, but the melee weapon was originally cut from the base game. Not sure if that’s just shady business practices on Activision and Infinity Ward’s side or if they were having second thoughts about bringing the weirdness of the later COD games to Modern Warfare remastered.

It’s just strange that it was cut out, only to be put back in, when it’s just a melee weapon. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that Activision was trying to get one over on their customers, as I still can’t believe the amount of in-game content that is up for sale in new COD games. So make sure to watch Activision carefully and call them out if anything like this ever goes down again.

19 Hearthstone And Call Of Duty Combined

I guess this shouldn’t come to much surprise, as Activision has always been keen on branching COD out with mobile games and handheld editions of the game, but a card game? A COD card game doesn’t even sound, well, right. Like, imagine how it would sound if you asked your friend for a round of COD. Well, depending on the person, they probably wouldn’t have too much of a problem with that, but if you explained that you wanted a round of the COD card game, they would only pray that they would slap some sense into you.

Who knows, maybe it would’ve been a good game. Seriously doubt it, but who knows.

The game itself was set to be produced by Upper Deck Entertainment, a trading card company so it might’ve been somewhat promising but I seriously have my doubts. It was set to release in the Fall of 2008, but seeing it on this list, we both know that it never came to be.

Still, I must praise Activision for being ambitious for once in an attempt in turning a video game into a card game. Sure games like Magic the Gathering were out way before then, but games like Gwent and the Elder Scroll card-game were way off into the future. So while the game did fail, kudos for trying something different.

18 Call Of Duty: Roman Wars

This list just keeps getting stranger and stranger. We’ve gone from seeing a canceled zombie map that would’ve been in Paris, and we’ve seen a Call of Duty cards game get thrown out the window. But none of those games, and I seriously mean none of them, can compare to the strangeness of this game, Call of Duty: Roman Wars. Yeah, don’t worry, I was speechless too. The game was looking to drastically change the COD formula by sending it waaay back in time and it would’ve been played from a top-down perspective rather than a first person one.

But COD: Roman Wars didn’t get taken too seriously by Activision, but it’s still funny to see that this game was this far in progress, and was even being considered at all. The game was in development in 2008 by a game studio by the name of Vicarious Visions.

Personally, I've never heard of this game studio, but their résumé actually includes plenty of hit titles that you are sure to recognize. The studio was involved in developing Skylanders, Guitar Hero III, Destiny 2, and most recently the remastered versions of Crash Bandicoot. With titles like those under their belt, it definitely would’ve been interesting to see this studio give a stab at this game.

17 The Call Of Duty Book They Don’t Want You To See

While I’m not much of a bookworm, I do love a good read from time to time. I especially like to pick up a book when an onscreen movie adaption comes out and everyone rants and raves about how the book is infinitely times better. Thankfully I’m finally on to Game of Thrones as the summer months finally dawn upon us.

One genre of books I’ve never got into, though, are books revolved around video games. Besides the Witcher series, I’ve never heard of a group of books that somehow elevated the story or even topped the story of a game. This brings us to Call of Duty, who has also taken a stab at getting into the literature business.

Besides comic books, it’s pretty much impossible to find a book based on the game but for a time there was a pretty popular book relating to COD: Ghosts. Devil's Breath was a short Call of Duty: Ghosts story written by Michael Rudin and it was released exclusively for the Amazon Kindle in 2013. Strangely, though, the book was removed from Amazon about two months after its release and has been unavailable for purchase since. The author Michael Rudin stated that the book was "out of stock," but we find that pretty hard to believe since it’s a book released virtually. What hidden secrets are found in the book? Well, unless you got the book, you’ll never know.

16 COD: Vietnam Still Lingers In Our Hearts

Well, there’s just so much good concept art for COD: Vietnam that we just had to include another fantastic image from the game, and if you’re lucky enough you might just see one more pop up on this list. There’s not much to be said that we didn’t already cover in the last one, so we decided to leave this entry to all the reasons why this game would absolutely smash in popularity and critical acclaim.

Call of Duty + Vietnam? Sounds like a recipe for success to me.

First off, we’re obviously still pretty tired of these ultra-realistic games set in the far, far future. Don’t get me wrong, the games are pretty fun once in a while, jet-packing around like some raccoon with wings can be pretty exhilarating the first few times. But I think we can all agree that Activision and their respected developers have to stop milking this cow. Granted, we just got a WWII game, but we say you gotta keep this streak up, and what better way to do that then go to Vietnam?

Any Bad Company 2 fans out there will know the enjoyment that came from that game’s Vietnam setting, and multiplayer DLC. So all Activision has to do is bottle some of that up and release it to the gaming world, trust me we won’t even tell EA or DICE that you plagiarized it, especially since they’ve sadly given up on the Bad Company franchise…

15 Call Of Duty: Devil’s Brigade

Isn’t it weird how many canceled games have come out of the Call of Duty franchise? Sure, every company probably has their fair share of canceled games, but it feels like the count for the COD games is just starting to get a little too high. Well, with that we get our next canceled game, Call of Duty: Devil’s Brigade. Shoutout to my COD fans who enjoyed the WWII combat, because this game was directly set in World War II with a focus on the events that transpired in Italy.

Taking this approach is actually pretty interesting, as I feel that Italy’s involvement in WWII is usually glossed over in history books; either that or I just snoozed off too many times in history class. But it would’ve been interesting to see the game cover historical events while still delivering that grounded WWII combat that we all love, well at least that I love.

But once again, the game was canceled by Activision, and can you believe that it was another third-person game canceled by the company? Seems that Activision really wanted to take a crack at getting into the third-person shooter genre but just couldn’t pull the trigger. Well hopefully their ambition comes back in the near future and we see that COD game set in third-person.

14 A Helicopter Ride Mission Was Cut Out Of Modern Warfare

Plenty of missions are usually cut out of COD games, and the original Modern Warfare is no stranger to that. But one of the missions that stood out from the rest of the canceled missions was a mission titled “Helicopter Ride.” Granted, we’ve all been in plenty of helicopters in Call of Duty 4, but this mission featured you traveling around what looks like to be a neighborhood and mowing down baddies with your chopper gun.

To my knowledge, this would’ve been a unique moment in a COD game; well, at least to that point. And this mission would’ve seriously gotten us all ready for MW2 when they released the chopper gunner killstreak. Unfortunately though, we now only have a minimap for the mission, and a mission called “helicopter_ride” that was found in the game’s files. And seeing as Modern Warfare has already received a remaster, it doesn’t seem like we’re ever going to see the mission brought to life.

But who knows, vehicle missions in COD games are a little bit of a drag—that being said, though, they also can be some of the best missions across all the games. So it’s definitely a toss-up as to whether it would’ve been good, but since it was Infinity Ward developing that game, when they were in their prime mind you, I’m guessing this mission would’ve been gold.

13 Kino Der Toten Was Set To Premiere In COD World At War

This might be confirmation bias at play, but I do have to say that there’s just this old-timey zombies feel that you get from a map like Kino Der Toten. For me, I can place the original four zombie maps in a bubble separate from the rest of the additions. These maps were crazy, and sure got crazier with maps like Shi No Numa and Der Riese buy for some reason they just feel much more grounded than the rest of the zombie maps. Maybe that’s just because they hold a special place in my heart, or maybe it’s just because I’m nostalgic for some World at War zombies, either way.

Kino Der Toten continued that streak of zombie maps, giving us new additions but still making the map feel within reach when learning it.

After that forget it, all the zombie maps became something that you needed to watch tons of YouTube videos for as the amount of mechanics involved became overwhelming. Now, don’t get me wrong, I honestly love some of the new zombie maps, but I will forever choose some of the classics over the new ones. Kino definitely falls into that classic category and it doesn’t surprise me that it was intended for World at War.

12 One In The Chamber Cut From Black Ops 3

When you make new games the standard should always be out with the old and in with the new—but this saying should never apply to fan-favorite game modes and mechanics. The game mode One in the Chamber made its debut in the original Black Ops and fans, myself included fell in love with the game mode. In the game, you were only given one bullet and were tasked with using it to end your enemies. If you took them out then you were rewarded a new bullet, and if you missed, well it looked like it was time to get that trusty knife and dance around your opponents.

This mode turned COD’s goofiness up to a whole new level while still making the experience feel competitive—so why was it cut out?

We just don’t get it guys, everyone and their mom loved this game mode and there was no reason at all to leave it on the cutting room floor. The game mode was massively popular in every game it was featured in and we don’t really think that would’ve changed here. And to add insult to injury the game files still remain in the game making this entry truly hurt.

11 What The Heck Is Call Of Duty Tactics?

I’m sure there’s plenty of Command and Conquer fans out there (well, not too sure how many of you there are after EA’s E3 conference) and there’s probably some fans of Red Faction and Halo Wars too. What do all these games have in common? Well, they’re all real-time strategy games that have dominated their genre for the past few decades, and it looked like COD was interested in jumping aboard this hype train with Call of Duty Tactics.

Call of Duty Tactics was going to be a strategy game being once again being developed by our friends over at Vicarious Visions. I swear I gotta feel for these guys for bringing so many out-of-the-box ambitious projects to Activision only to be shot down. It once again proves that Activision has gotten comfortable playing the safe game when it comes to what games they greenlight and which ones they send to the trash.

Got a game that includes microtransactions and loot boxes? Well, come right on in, because Activision surely has a place for you. Got a game that’s out-of-the-box and sure to provide a risk? Better look elsewhere, as COD Tactics learned the hard way. Keep it up Activision and we’re going to be comparing you to EA.

10 Modern Warfare 3 Lost A Few Maps Along The Way

Modern Warfare 3, Infinity Ward’s first stumble in the COD franchise, and the first indicator that Activision was on to this rinse and repeat formula when it came to COD games. Certainly if COD: Ghosts didn’t exist I would easily label MW3 as one of my least favorite COD games. The story was decent, but it just didn’t live up to the hype that the other two games in the Modern Warfare lineage provided. And it pains me to this day to talk about the multiplayer, and how big of a let down if felt compared to other COD games.

Maybe the hype was just too much for MW3 to handle, or maybe the game just sucked, or maybe we just didn’t get the best multiplayer maps and all the good ones were cut out. Now while the last option is unlikely to be the reason for MW3 being entirely bad, it’s still pretty alarming to see how many maps were taken out of this game.

In total the game lost six multiplayer maps, but we’ll say five since one of the maps was initially cut only to be released as DLC later (which is still very shady!). One of the most complete looking maps cut was Alps and is featured above. Personally, I like the look of the map although it’s underdeveloped; there’s just something about the countryside and COD games. So who knows, maybe some better maps would’ve resulted in a better game.

9 This Call Of Duty Card Game Still Has Us Scratching Our Heads

Well, since we found the box art and full images for the Call of Duty card game, we just had no choice but to feature it as another entry on this list. Out of morbid curiosity, I would’ve really wanted to see what this game would’ve turned out like if it was released on the market. I can see the memes and the jokes now littered all over Reddit and 4chan with users calling out Activision for throwing Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, and COD all into one blender.

This game just seems like a recipe for disaster, and thankfully Activision saw that before releasing this game to the public.

Still, I just can’t help but wonder how the game would’ve done. Could it have been the next hit card game? Well, I seriously doubt it, but it does make you think. I can tell you one thing for sure, that my friends and I would’ve definitely picked up this game ignoring price and reviews just to give a shot. I can see us all now huddled up around a card table laughing about how we’re about to play a COD card game. I gotta give it to Activision for trying to be ambitious with a game like this, but I gotta take the compliment back immediately as they threw the ax in this game before it even got its wings.

8 Did The Wave Gun Look Differently In Concept?

Now, I have to admit, every list I usually have at least one entry that is a bit of a stretch. I’m not afraid to admit it, well maybe not afraid is the wrong term, as I am afraid that a crowd of angry fanboys and girls will storm down my door to protest my terrible jokes and opinions—but thankfully that day has not come yet. But here I am admitting to you that this is my entry that I’m including but realizing that it may come off as a bit of a stretch to some of you. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s because we're talking about the design of the wave gun and how I think it was changed from concept, very slightly at least.

If you look at the design versus the actual weapon itself you can see that the design looks a lot longer than the actual weapon in the game. It looks as if the weapon was a full body-length but was instead created to be a normal-sized weapon. Maybe I’m reaching though, as it could be possible that the weapon goes past what you see on the screen but I’m just calling this one like I see it. If Activision ever confirms this slight difference, then remember, you heard it here first.

7 Call Of Duty Tactics Has Some Pretty Good Gameplay

Okay, so we had to have another entry for Call of Duty Tactics, especially after we found some gameplay that we’ll link here. And honestly, I wouldn’t have given this game another entry if it weren’t for the fact that we were quite impressed after watching the video. Sure, the card game would’ve been trash, and the COD game set in Rome would’ve probably been right up there with infamous games like Duke Nukem Forever and Sonic 06. But Call of Duty Tactics, on the other hand, well, this game actually looks pretty good.

I think if enough time was poured in then they really could’ve made a splash with a game like this.

The gameplay actually looks pretty legit, and reminds me of the South Park RPG games with a little more traditional strategy added to the mix. It’s almost like an X-COM game that’s been adapted for Call of Duty, and honestly I think it works really well. I mean a similar strategy worked for that Mario/Rabbids game so I don’t see why this game wouldn’t work as well. Check out the video to see what I mean, because I honestly don’t get why this game was scrapped, get your head in the game Activision.

6 Heading To The Movies In Kino Der Toten

Honestly, I feel like this list is going to make me look like a Kino Der Toten fanboy, as this is the second time the zombies map is getting an entry on this list. And honestly, I have no problem being labeled a fanboy for Kino, as it’s one of the best maps across all the games. I still remember the days of holding up in the recording room only to drop grenades on the mindless zombies below. Speaking of that room though, based on this concept image it looks like the film might’ve been intended to show off a few home movies.

Pretty sure that a theater set in WWII Germany would feature a few films that would probably be unacceptable today but it still would’ve been a blast to obliterate zombies to some movies in the background. Like just imagine something like Night of the Living Dead playing, or maybe something like “Eraserhead”. Heck, I’d go head-over-heels if I saw a Twilight Zone episode playing in the theater.

Instead, we’re subject to a lot of creepy imagery mixed with a countdown timer, which is still pretty cool but I’m over here waiting for my Twilight Zone episode. This did seem like a bit of missed opportunity, but Kino is such a good map that we’ll let it slide.