10 Gaming Endings That Basically Doomed The Franchise

In recent years the Call of Duty franchise has made some misguidedly ambitious attempts to move away from the more typical campaign narratives players are used to, culminating in the comically absurd plot - or what passes for one, anyway - of Black Ops III.

Making even basic sense of the game's wildly convoluted story isn't easy, though the end of BO3 reveals that the unnamed protagonist actually died at the start of the game, and most of the subsequent events have in fact been taking place inside a simulation.

The final moments of the game see the player voluntarily wiping themselves from existence in order to allow comrade John Taylor to regain control of his body, but by this point, most players were simply scratching their heads in bemusement.

More than anything, Black Ops 3's migraine-inducingly incoherent story underlined an overall problem with the franchise: the fast-ramping sci-fi silliness of the series had reached a fever pitch.

And so, when it came time for Treyarch to develop Black Ops IIII, they responded to the vocal fan criticism of BO3's campaign by...just not including a campaign at all. Instead, they controversially chose to focus instead on a new battle royale mode, Blackout, to fans' further frustration.

Though subsequent Call of Duty games from other studios have thankfully restored campaigns to the fore, it's fair to suggest that the Black Ops brand has been permanently tainted by the hostile response to BO3's horrendous campaign - especially its ending.