Call of Duty: Ghosts is a 2013 first-person shooter game created by Infinity Ward and released by Activision. It is the tenth main game in the Call of Duty series and the sixth made by Infinity Ward. The game was available on PlayStation 3, Wii U, Windows, and Xbox 360 on November 5, 2013. As of 2025, it is the most recent Call of Duty game released for a Nintendo platform. It was also released when the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One launched.
This game is separate from the World War II, Black Ops, and Modern Warfare series that came before it. It shares many gameplay features with earlier games, such as a mission-based story mode and an open multiplayer mode. However, it introduces a near-future setting and adds new tactical elements, including "Squads" modes and orbital strike weapons in multiplayer. It also includes a co-operative mode called Extinction, which follows the style of the Zombies mode from Call of Duty: World at War. The science fiction themes in Ghosts were later expanded in Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare.
Critics gave mixed reviews to the game. They praised its multiplayer and the Extinction mode but criticized its single-player story for being repetitive and lacking new ideas. Later reviews were mostly negative, and the game ranked low in lists comparing Call of Duty games. Because of its poor reception and the timing of its release with new consoles, it did not meet Activision's goals.
Gameplay
In Call of Duty: Ghosts, the story is mainly shown through the perspective of Logan Walker. Other playable characters include an astronaut expert named Baker, Sergeant Thompson, Elias Walker, who is part of the Ghosts and Logan’s father, and a new character, Riley, a German Shepherd dog. Riley is the first non-human character players can control in the game.
The multiplayer mode in Call of Duty: Ghosts includes new features compared to earlier games. Some areas on the maps can be changed or destroyed. A special reward called the KEM Strike looks like a nuclear weapon and is given for achieving a certain number of kills. Another reward, the ODIN kill streak, can be earned by killing the top player on the opposing team and completing challenges after picking up a blue briefcase. Sniper rifle scopes now use "dual render technology," which allows players to see slightly around the edges of the scope when zoomed in, though the view is blurry. The game also includes playable female soldiers.
A new game type called Squads is introduced. Players can play alone or with others, including friends. Each squad includes ten customizable characters. These squads can be used in different game modes that involve AI-controlled enemies and teammates. The game modes include Squad Assault, Safeguard, Safeguard Infinite, Squad vs. Squad, and Wargame. These modes can be played online or offline.
The game includes traditional multiplayer modes like Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Search and Destroy, Domination, and Free For All. It also adds new modes such as Cranked and Blitz. In Cranked, after killing an enemy, a player becomes "Cranked" and has 30 seconds to kill another enemy. If they fail, they explode. In Blitz, players must reach a portal at the enemy’s starting area while stopping the enemy team from reaching theirs. The portals close for 10 seconds after being captured to slow down attacks. Another mode, Infected, is similar to a mode in Modern Warfare 3. One player starts infected and can spread the infection to others until all survivors are infected or time runs out. Playlists rotate between different scenarios with various weapons. This mode supports up to 18 players on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, and up to 12 players on other platforms. A larger version of Domination and Team Deathmatch, called Ground War, is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Gun Game was added later.
Extinction is a 4-player co-op mode where players defend a base against alien enemies called Cryptids. The main goal is usually to destroy all Cryptid hives on the map, except in Awakening and Exodus. In Awakening, players must scan for obelisks to destroy, and in Exodus, players must activate generators. Players choose from four class types with unique abilities and customizable weapons. Classes can be leveled up to unlock more weapons and gear. This mode becomes available after completing the first level of the main story.
The first map, Point of Contact, is included in the base game and introduces the Extinction mode. It takes place in an abandoned city in Colorado, two weeks after the campaign mission Ghost Stories.
The second map, Nightfall, is part of the Onslaught DLC. It is set in an Alaskan research facility, 14 weeks after Point of Contact. It introduces two new story characters: Dr. Samantha Cross and Captain David Archer. The map also adds two new types of Cryptids, one of which is a boss enemy called the Breeder. Players gain access to a powerful weapon called the Venom X. Story-related clues about Cross and Archer can be found throughout the map.
The third map, Mayday, is part of the Devastation DLC. It takes place on a naval ship, 26 days after Nightfall. Two new Cryptids are introduced: the Seeder, which looks like the red seekers but is bright orange and spawns plant-like turrets that shoot at players, and the Kraken, a large, multi-tentacled boss. Players can find weapons and schematics to build powerful offensive and defensive tools, including four versions of the Venom X. Story-related clues are also available.
The fourth map, Awakening, is part of the Invasion DLC. It is set in an underground Cryptid hive, 36 hours after Mayday. Three new Cryptids are added: the flying Gargoyle, the explosive Bomber, and the powerful Mammoth. The Cryptids’ leaders, the Ancestors, appear in the map. Players can use ARK attachments to turn weapons into laser-based tools. Story-related clues are also present.
The final map, Exodus, is part of the Nemesis DLC. It takes place in a launch facility, 3 months after Awakening. Players face a final battle against the Cryptids, encountering nearly all types of enemies, including the Ancestors. Players can choose different paths through the map. Two new weapons, the NX-1 Disruptor and NX-1 Grenades, are introduced and are needed to defeat the Ancestors.
Plot
Before the events of the game, a conflict in the Middle East caused widespread damage, destroying oil fields and leading to a global energy crisis. Several oil-producing countries in South America formed the Federation of the Americas, a military government. This group took control of all remaining countries in the continent and then invaded Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
In 2017, U.S. Army Captain Elias Walker told his teenage sons, Logan and David "Hesh" Walker, about the legend of the Ghosts, a group made up of all U.S. Special Operations Forces units. At the same time, in space, the Federation took control of the Orbital Defense Initiative (ODIN), a system of American satellites that used powerful weapons to attack cities in the southwestern United States. U.S. Air Force astronauts Captain Baker and Mosley sacrificed their lives to destroy the space station and stop ODIN from launching more attacks. The Walker family narrowly escaped the destruction of San Diego.
Ten years later, the war between the United States and the Federation reached a stalemate along the ruined cities and the former U.S.-Mexico border, known as "No Man's Land." The Federation tried to break the frontlines, but U.S. forces held their ground. In 2027, Hesh and Logan joined a special Army unit led by Elias, along with their dog Riley. During a mission in No Man's Land, they saw Federation agent Gabriel Rorke interrogating a Ghost operative named Ajax. They joined other Ghost operatives, Thomas Merrick and Keegan Russ, to rescue Ajax, but he was killed. The brothers returned to Santa Monica, California, where U.S. forces were fighting the Federation. There, they reunited with their father, who revealed he was the leader of the Ghosts. Elias told them about Rorke and how he began hunting the Ghosts.
In 2015, during the Federation's expansion in South America, General Diego Almagro ordered all U.S.-born citizens in Federation territory to be imprisoned or executed. Rorke convinced the U.S. government to send the Ghosts to assassinate Almagro in Caracas. The mission succeeded, but Elias had to leave Rorke behind to save himself and his team. The Federation captured Rorke and used torture and hallucinogens to brainwash him into becoming a Federation commander.
In the present, the Ghosts infiltrated Caracas to find Rorke's location from Victor Ramos, the head of the Federation's research and development. They attacked and captured Rorke from his base in the Gulf of Mexico, but Federation forces rescued him after destroying their plane. The team landed in the Yucatán Peninsula and saw a Federation missile launch. To learn the missile's target, they infiltrated a Federation base in the Andes and discovered plans for a new superweapon. The Ghosts destroyed the Atlas oil platform in the Drake Passage and sank a destroyer guarding a factory in Rio de Janeiro. They then broke into the factory, where they learned the Federation had reverse-engineered ODIN into LOKI, their own orbital weapon system.
After destroying the factory, the Ghosts regrouped at a safe house in Las Vegas but were captured by Rorke, who killed Elias before they escaped Federation forces. In a final attack, the U.S. military gathered all remaining forces to assault the LOKI space station. Hesh and Logan launched a missile at the Federation's space center in the Atacama Desert, and the U.S. Space Force took control of the LOKI station, destroying the Federation by turning their weapons against them. Hesh and Logan disobeyed Merrick's orders to pursue Rorke and avenge their father. They cornered Rorke, and Logan shot him, seemingly killing him, before rescuing Hesh from drowning and reaching the surface. However, Rorke survived and captured Logan, aiming to brainwash him into becoming a Federation agent.
In a post-credits scene, Logan was seen in a caged pit in the jungle, likely undergoing the same torture as Rorke.
Following the Federation's attack on ODIN Station and the destruction of much of the United States, a stray missile hit Caldera Peak, Colorado, revealing a colony of ancient creatures called Cryptids that had been dormant underground. The Cryptids' masters, the Ancestors, used this opportunity to awaken the creatures, causing them to attack the town and destroy everything in their path. A Task Force named Spectre was sent to eliminate the Cryptids. Though successful, remains of the creatures were collected by the Nightfall Program, a research project studying the Cryptids' origins. David Archer, a former British SAS officer who started the program, secretly experimented on a researcher named Dr. Samantha Cross to understand her abilities. Cross, however, became a hypnotic spy for the Ancestors and caused an outbreak at the Nightfall facility, killing everyone except herself and Archer. An elite squad, CIF Team One, was sent to help Archer and Cross escape, but Archer secretly left on a destroyer to reach another Cryptid site.
For three weeks, Archer experimented on Cross, discovering she could control the Cryptids. Using her as a guide, he led the destroyer to other Cryptid Arks around the world. Cross was fully controlled by the Ancestors and summoned the Ark's guardian, the Kraken, to attack Archer and the destroyer. CIF Team One was sent to rescue Archer and kill Cross, as agreed with their handler, General "Godfather" Castle. Cross escaped and reached the Ark, while Archer was infected by a Cryptid and had his hand amputated by Cross. She temporarily allied with him to explain the Ancestors' motives. CIF Team One later retrieved a device called the Cortex, containing tissue samples of an Ancestor's brain, and Cross was taken from the Ark, leaving Archer to die.
On their way back to the United States, CIF Team One was attacked by Cryptids and stranded in the outbreak zone. Cross escaped captivity. For three months, Cryptids overwhelmed U.S. military centers, leaving General Castle as the leader of the surviving population. He ordered CIF
Development
On February 7, 2013, Activision announced that a new Call of Duty game was being developed and would be released in the fourth quarter of 2013. The publisher expected the game to sell fewer copies than the previous Call of Duty game, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, on seventh-generation consoles (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) because of the shift to next-generation consoles.
The series began a new subseries with Ghosts to match the release of Sony and Microsoft’s eighth-generation consoles. The game was initially described as using a new engine, but it was later clarified that the same engine from previous games was used with major improvements. The game also used Umbra Software’s rendering tool, Umbra 3, to improve the speed of rendering large environments through a technique called occlusion culling, which hides objects not visible to the player.
The Wii U version of the game was created by Treyarch.
Infinity Ward focused on maintaining a high frame rate rather than maximizing display resolution during the development of Call of Duty: Ghosts. The game aimed to run at 60 frames per second on all platforms. It displayed at 1080p on PlayStation 4, but the Xbox One could only display 720p while keeping the frame rate steady. However, due to a "configuration issue," the PlayStation 4 version required a patch on the day of release to achieve 1080p.
David Buckley composed the game’s original soundtrack. Rapper Eminem’s 2013 song "Survival" was included as the game’s credit song.
Marketing and release
On April 29, 2013, the official Call of Duty website was updated with a social media mosaic that filled up each time a user logged in using Twitter or Facebook. The next day, the mosaic was completed, showing a skull along with the text "the Ghosts are real." Some details about Ghosts were shared before, especially when Tesco accidentally removed the game from its PlayStation 3 listing. Other retailers, including Target, listed the game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The live-action teaser trailer for Ghosts, titled "Masked Warriors," showed people wearing historical battle masks, including a group of soldiers putting on the skull mask seen on the box art. It was released on May 1, 2013. Ghosts was shown at the "Xbox Reveal" event on May 21, 2013. During E3 2013, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were promoted, and the Wii U version was confirmed on June 13.
On August 14, 2013, American rapper Eminem's song "Survival," featuring Liz Rodrigues and produced by DJ Khalil, was first shown in the multiplayer trailer for the game. The music video for the song includes footage from the game's single-player campaign and other game elements.
Call of Duty: Ghosts was released for Windows and current-generation consoles—PlayStation 3, Wii U, and Xbox 360—on November 5, 2013. Activision announced that the game would be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One by the time each console was released: November 15, 2013, for PlayStation 4, and November 22, 2013, for Xbox One. Despite this, some retailers made the PlayStation 4 version available before the planned release date.
Downloadable content (DLC) for Ghosts has been released. Pre-ordered versions of the game included a bonus "dynamic" map called "Free Fall" and allowed players to use Simon "Ghost" Riley and John "Soap" MacTavish from Modern Warfare 2 as multiplayer characters. However, "Free Fall" was not included in the Wii U pre-ordered version, which was later released on the Wii U on March 4, 2014.
Four sets of DLC map packs were released in 2014. A Season Pass is available, giving players immediate access to all four DLC packs.
The first map pack, Onslaught, was released for Xbox 360 and Xbox One on January 28, 2014, and for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Windows on February 27. It includes an exclusive playlist for DLC owners. The pack adds four new multiplayer maps: "Fog," "Bayview," "Ignition," and "Containment." The map "Ignition" is a remake of "Scrapyard" from Modern Warfare 2. It also includes two new multiplayer weapons: the Maverick assault rifle and the Maverick A-2 sniper rifle. It includes "Nightfall," the first of four Extinction episodic contents. On the map "Fog," Michael Myers from the Halloween film series appears as a playable character, unlocked by completing challenges through Field Orders.
The second map pack, Devastation, was released for Xbox 360 and Xbox One on April 3, 2014, and for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Windows on May 8. It includes an exclusive playlist for DLC owners. The pack adds four new multiplayer maps: "Ruins," "Behemoth," "Collision," and "Unearthed." The map "Unearthed" is a remake of the fan-favorite map "Dome" from Modern Warfare 3. It includes a new hybrid multiplayer weapon called the Ripper, available early to Season Pass owners. On the map "Ruins," Predator from the Predator film series appears as a playable character. It also includes the next Extinction episode, titled "Mayday."
The third map pack, Invasion, was released for Xbox 360 and Xbox One on June 3, 2014, and for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Windows on July 3. It includes an exclusive playlist for DLC owners. The pack adds four new multiplayer maps: "Pharaoh," "Departed," "Mutiny," and "Favela," a remake of the fan-favorite map of the same name from Modern Warfare 2. It includes the third Extinction episode, titled "Awakening."
The final map pack, Nemesis, was released for Xbox 360 and Xbox One on August 5, 2014, and for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Windows on September 4. It includes an exclusive playlist for DLC owners. The pack adds four new multiplayer maps: "Goldrush," "Subzero," "Dynasty," and a reimagined version of the map "Shipment" from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, titled "Showtime." It includes the final Extinction episode, titled "Exodus."
Additional downloadable content includes Announcer Packs featuring Snoop Dogg and the Drill Instructor (with R. Lee Ermey, who starred in Full Metal Jacket), Personalization Packs, Legend Packs, and Special Characters.
Reception
Call of Duty: Ghosts received "mixed or average" and "generally favorable" reviews, according to Metacritic, a website that collects game reviews. IGN said the game improved the multiplayer experience with "big changes" and described the story as "long, difficult, and varied." GameSpot called the story "impressive" and "a great collection of action scenes." Both IGN and GameSpot praised the ability to customize characters and new multiplayer game types, especially Extinction, which was called "a lot of fun" and "interesting to play."
However, PC Gamer said the story was "exciting but not very engaging" and criticized the multiplayer for feeling repetitive. VideoGamer.com said the gameplay was "better than Black Ops 2" but called the story "boring and unoriginal." Eurogamer said the story felt like a step backward but still had "exciting moments." Joystiq said the game reused old ideas and failed to improve on previous games.
The game sold $1 billion worth of copies in its first day, but overall sales were lower than Call of Duty: Black Ops II in 2012. Activision said the drop in sales was due to uncertainty about new consoles. By February 2014, the game had sold over 19 million physical copies.
Later reviews of Call of Duty: Ghosts were mostly negative, with the game ranked low in lists of the best games in the series. Critics said the game lacked new ideas and was similar to older titles. Seth Parmer of TheGamer said the game was "disappointing" and failed to match the quality of earlier games. The story was criticized for being forgettable and ending without resolution. Some reviewers said the multiplayer maps were poor and the game’s colors looked dull. Parmer said Extinction mode did not match the quality of Treyarch’s Zombies mode. Dan Wenerowicz of Complex said Ghosts marked the end of the series’ "Golden Age." However, Chris Freiberg of Den of Geek said the story was one of the best in the series and that some changes made the game age well. Ghosts was the first Call of Duty game to include features like sliding, leaning, and animations when interacting with the environment.