What is the oldest CoD multiplayer?

As an avid Call of Duty gamer since the early days, I often get asked – what was the first COD game with multiplayer? That honor goes to the original Call of Duty released in 2003 for PC. While now known as a pioneering online shooter franchise, COD started much smaller with basic team deathmatch modes for local split-screen competition.

Call of Duty (2003) Lays the Foundation

According to analysis on Reddit, the debut Call of Duty game focused mainly on its World War 2 single player campaign. However, it did also ship with multiplayer support for 2-8 players on one network. Game modes included team deathmatch, behind enemy lines, retrieval, and more standard options. Maps were adapted from campaign missions, with a max player count of 8 per server.

There was no online multiplayer though. You had to setup a LAN connection with friends in the same location to squad up and battle. Still, Call of Duty built on id Software‘s revolutionary work with Doom and Quake deathmatches, bringing a military theme and squad dynamics to local competitive play on PCs.

United Offensive Takes COD Online

The next year Infinity Ward released the first COD expansion pack – Call of Duty: United Offensive. This 2004 add-on introduced larger-scale online multiplayer with vehicles and turrets on bigger maps. Servers could now hold as many as 64 players, paving the way for the massive online clashes that would define later franchise entries.

United Offensive also brought modding tools like map, vehicle, and weapon editors for players to customize sessions. And it expanded multiplayer modes to include domination, capture the flag, and special vehicle-focused variants. This packed expansion proved Call of Duty could succeed as an online PvP experience, not just a solo war story.

Key Multiplayer Milestones

The Golden Age – COD4 Through Black Ops

While United Offensive expanded horizons, most Call of Duty devotees agree the series did not fully hit its competitive multiplayer stride until 2007‘s groundbreaking Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The move to contemporary settings over World War 2 opened up gameplay possibilities and customization options.

COD4 allowed players to tweak loadouts with different perks and weapons tailored to playstyle. Competitive features like killstreaks, XP progression, and rankings pushed multiplayer into overdrive. By 2010‘s Black Ops, Treyarch was adding wager matches, deeper cosmetic personalization, and virtual currency systems that are now standard.

These seismic shifts cemented Call of Duty as one of the driving forces in multiplayer gaming alongside Halo and Counter-Strike. Launch week player counts soared from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions with every annual installment thanks to explosive online growth:

Warzone & Modern Warfare 2 – The Next Evolution

Today, the Call of Duty phenomenon chugs forward with yearly installments and free-to-play extensions like Call of Duty: Warzone. Recent entries such as 2022‘s Modern Warfare 2 prove the formula still has life left with refined gameplay modes, social functions, and gorgeous visuals powered by new hardware.

Yet it is important not to forget the trail blazed by those initial Call of Duty titles in 2003-2004. The introduction of multiplayer changed Call of Duty from a campaign-focused WWII shooter into the competitive gaming titan it is now over 200 million units later. And for devout fans like myself, getting to witness and contribute to that astonishing evolution over 20 years of play has been a privilege.