10 Video Games So Good They Ruined Genres

6. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is unquestionably one of the most influential video games of all time, an unfathomably ground-breaking first-person shooter which changed both narrative and multiplayer shooters forever more.

For starters, its ultra-immersive, cinematic campaign kick-started a trend of me-too imitators, not least in its own series, which in a quest to recapture the glorious glory of Modern Warfare's blockbuster campaign, progressively ramped up both the shock value and the absurdity to cartoonish levels.

But more historic was Modern Warfare's re-shaping of online gunplay, introducing levelling and progression mechanics to a genre that had previously given players little incentive to keep playing beyond, you know, the fun of it.

The dopamine hit that came with every level up no doubt contributed to Modern Warfare's unprecedented commercial success (for both the franchise and the genre), and every subsequent AAA FPS trying to cash-in on its innovation.

And yet, how many other online FPS franchises can you even name, let alone profess to have played or even actively enjoy today?

Call of Duty may be a very different beast over a decade later, but as the 2016 release of Modern Warfare Remastered proved, the original has an enduring power that makes it as absurdly addictive today as it was in 2007.

No subsequent multiplayer FPS has managed to outdo it because, let's be honest, no other multiplayer FPS has that bloody brilliant Shipment map, right?