Call of Duty® (2003)

this is my favorite call of duty game, even though ive only played this and world at war. although it does rip control away from you sometimes, it balances control with gameplay to produce an experience of a game like no other. You should 100% play this game, and do so every day for a hundred days now GO BUY IT MAGGOT

This game is good, because you're not expected to tolerate Nazis, you just shoot them.

This game is selling for £14.99.

It's a game from 2003.
There is not much gameplay available that I could say is worth £14.99.

Deus Ex, a game from 2000 is going for £5.99. Deus Ex can easily provide over 20 hours of original gameplay.

The campaign for Call of Duty is short and action packed, but its not really very much. It's simply just running and shooting. I will say it definitely holds up today, its not complicated and gives exactly what you need, a fun WW2 shooter.

but it's just not worth buying this game.
It's too damn expensive and doesn't provide the same bang for your buck as it should.

Playing Call of Duty from 2003 today, more than twenty years after its release, was quite a unique experience. Right from the start, I couldn’t expect anything groundbreaking graphically: this was an era of flat textures, simple animations, and polygon models as jagged as an old pixelated JPEG. The smooth movement of modern installments, with acrobatic jumps, slides, and parkour that would make an Olympic athlete jealous, is just a distant dream here. If you can jump and prone, consider yourself lucky.

Yet, in its extreme simplicity, this Call of Duty managed to surprise me. The story isn’t exactly a masterpiece of writing or innovation, but the presence of the legendary Captain Price — now an iconic, familiar figure in the more recent games — brought me back in time with a bittersweet nostalgia. Seeing that familiar face and those old mechanics brought a tear to my eye, reminding me why this series has endured and won over millions of fans throughout the years.

Another thing that struck me was the difficulty. I always thought that as a kid I couldn’t finish these games simply because I wasn’t very good with shooters. Now that I’m older, I realize the challenge level was genuinely high. I played on “soldier” difficulty and still had to sweat buckets to complete the campaign. A very different experience from more recent titles, where the story often feels like a walk in the park.

In conclusion, playing Call of Duty (2003) in 2025 was a real lesson in humility and respect for the series’ roots. Despite obvious technical limits and simple gameplay, it still manages to move you and truly challenge the player. A trip down memory lane that I recommend to all fans of the saga and anyone who wants to understand where it all began.

I never got to play this one back in the day as we were a Medal of Honor household but I'm so glad I have finally done it, my first CoD was CoD 4 so to come right back to where it all started and seeing franchise staples being established and ageing so well after even after 22 years is just fantastic

If you're playing on a 1440p ultrawide like me chuck this into your launch settings for a flawless experience, tweak the fps and fov settings to your liking:

+set r_mode -1 +set r_customwidth 3440 +set r_customheight 1440 +set r_customaspect 1.7 +set cg_fov 105 +seta com_maxfps 120 +seta r_overBrightBits 0.3 +bind F12 "" +seta com_hunkmegs "512"

Call of Duty started here in 2003 during a time of heavy competition with the Medal of Honor series and Wolfenstein series among others. Coming in new they had to innovate, and innovate they did!

The training section is much better than in Medal of Honor Allied Assault which came out the year before, but that game had the famous D-Day mission on Omaha beach. Allied Assault also had a paratrooper mission in the expansion pack Spearhead, also released before Call of Duty.

CoD innovates by enabling aiming down the sight, and making you part of a team when attacking - allied soldiers being constantly replaced. The gameplay is frantic and exciting and the level design varied. We also see the campaign from 3 different perspectives, the American, British and Soviet.

AMERICAN (took about 1h 20 minutes)

The introduction, but still my least favorite of the bunch. I never like this type of trench warfare which was common in WW2 games. The car scene is legendary and something that MoH just didn't have. My favorite mission is still rescuing Captain Price which comes at the end.

This campaign is a lot easier than I remember it, maybe a bigger screen makes it easier to play? Most notably the "rescue mission" in the camp was something I thought was excrutiatingly difficult as a teenager, but now I simply thought "Oh, was that it?"

I like the journals in the beginning explaining what I'm doing and overall it's an OK campaign in CoD, and way better than Medal of Honor's campaign, in spite of being the worst CoD campaign.

BRITISH (took also about 1h 20 minutes)

Good campaign, but a bit artificially stretched. The 1st and 2nd missions are played twice which seems kind of lazy. The beginning does have some resemblance with the movie "A Bridge too Far" which is kind of cool. The "lorry" mission is a classic, and much better than the American equivalent.

Here we have Captain Price true start. The final missions seems a bit "extra" almost DLC like, but that's fine by me.

Overall a great campaign!

SOVIET (Around 1h 30 minutes)

The beginning of this game is of course ripped straight from Enemy at the Gates, a movie which was popular at the time but these days it's rather obscure. The opening is great, but followed by an awful "city level".

Next up gave me deja vu, a sniper level in the sewers with the enemy propaganda spouting out. CoD 2 had exactly this which is rather lazy of the sequel.

The Polish tank factory assault is just lazy. Tons of enemies and no backup. I remeber dying like crazy here when I was 15, but this time it went quite quickly.

This part ended with a tank assault, just like... Medal of Honor Allied Assault but more open. Kind of forgettable, but still... varied. Overall the Soviet campaign was something i remember being my favourite campaign, but this time around it was about on par with the American.

COMBINED (Total around 30 minutes)

Just when I thought the game ended, we get a bonus part. Just like... CoD 2 lol, but from all 3 perspectives around 10 minutes each more.

These last missions were pretty good! Destroying V2 rockets as both the Americans and British and then storming the Reichstag as the Soviets. Funny, I remembered that mission from CoD WaW (again with the repetition), but not from CoD 1.

CONCLUSION

CoD 1 is better than CoD 2 in my opinion, with the exception of smoke grenades being an enormous improvement in CoD 2. There's no regenerating health, but there's tons of health packs all over the place, so maybe not that necessary.

It has some laziness like no scoped Lee Enfield so the British get a Kar98K scoped instead, and the maching gun that the Soviets use to gun down their own people is an MG42 which is like "dafuq"?

What made me baffled was the fact that I remember this game being longer, but nope! It clocks in at 4.5 HOURS, just like every CoD campaign ever made.

And that... is kind of sad.

[SGC]SGT.Lord reporting for duty SIR!

It's managed to age just well enough to be played in nowaday. Can't so about United Offensive.

Pretty fun campaign, good to see how it all started. On veteran it's batshit insane.

classic

What can I say... It’s a classic. I used to play it long ago, back when I was in primary school I think, yet I somehow got no sense of nostalgia - which is good, because it allows me to have a sober opinion.

And so, considering the age of this game (and in many aspects it aged like milk, let’s be honest), it’s still a great game for it’s time. Three different branches of campaign, representing three different countries, with a triumphant culminating mission of taking over Berlin - while missions on their own hold very little weight, all of them combined tell quite a good story.

I bought and played it just for my collection, and I honestly doubt I’ll revisit it again, but it’s a good addition to the collection nevertheless. As I said - a classic.

This game is honestly a classic and a huge part of my childhood. I used to play Call of Duty (2003) all the time when I was 10 and up, and it still holds a special place for me. Back then, it felt like the most intense and immersive war game out there — and in many ways, it really was for its time.

The missions, while they may not feel as fresh or action-packed now compared to newer titles, were incredibly detailed for a 2003 release. The way it captured the chaos and intensity of World War II battles was something that stuck with me. It gave you the perspective of different allied soldiers, which added variety and made the campaign feel more complete.

Sure, the graphics and mechanics are outdated now, and going back might not hit the same for newer players. But if you appreciate gaming history or just want to revisit a legendary start to the Call of Duty franchise, it’s absolutely worth checking out.

I definitely recommend it, especially to anyone who wants to see where one of the biggest FPS franchises began. It may be old, but it's still amazing in its own right.

Still one of the best WWII shooters ever made.
The original Call of Duty from 2003 brings back so many memories — chaotic battles, incredible sound design, and campaign missions that felt cinematic before cinematic shooters were even a thing.

The AI might feel old-school now, but the pacing, atmosphere and story still hold up. It’s raw, focused, and powerful.

I recorded a full 4K walkthrough of the game (no commentary, pure nostalgia) — check it out here:
👉 https://youtu.be/l7on9rT6If4

If you’re a fan of old-school shooters or just want to relive the golden era of CoD, this is still absolutely worth playing.

⭐️ 10/10 – Still hits like a Panzerfaust.

10/10 if you like WW2 history and fps games

pretty fun campaign but there arent any multiplayer lobbies

beginning and end of the soviet campaign is as peak as it was years ago

Well that was short.

It's gooooooood...... It's like teetering on the edge of average, only saved by the American campaign having some banger set-pieces and the Russian campaign being... am... perfect.

The actual game itself plays like COD. You've played a COD before! Though with how accurate and 1:1 the aiming is, I was laughing because it was like a CS:GO Player was just "unleashed" on the front lines! (Every single headshot in WWII, was me!) Probably helped by the AI being very bad. Enemies will run to be killed in the exact same spot, allies will run between you and the enemy. I was able to predict what corners enemies spawned to hide behind because it became routine! Probably helped by the enemies gun models often clipping through the walls. And the British campaign was so dull and routine and had no surprises. The only interesting thing in that campaign was the final mission, that started off with you following Captain Price! leading an infiltration mission! on a boat out at sea! hmm... (MW foreshadowing!)

But there are good things worth experiencing. The American Campaign starts off pretty by the numbers, but then you're in this chaotic car chase where your driver's making wild turns and you're being chased by trucks full of soldiers shooting at you! And you can poke out of the car and shoot back! and then there's a tank and you reverse into an ally, which is actually a cul de sac, and you gotta get out of the car and run around the village to steal ANOTHER CAR and continue the drive away!! It was sooo cool!!! And there's a mission where you gotta run around this village, but tanks keep coming, so you gotta run back to this church to get rocket launcher ammo to blow up the tanks, and a tank cuts off your path! Ah!! The American campaign was really building up steam... and then it just ends!! out of nowhere!!!

Now what I recommend you do is, once you realise you're in the British campaign, press tab to open console command and enter "Play "Stalingrad" Map". And enjoy THE REASON YOU PLAY THIS GAME!!! The Russian Campaign is, still, one of the best shooter genre campaigns ever. Period. No notes. It has an amazing opening. Really good atmosphere! Has likeable and actually, kind of, memorable Characters. Amazing set-pieces like the American campaign. But! It builds up steam AND pays off at the end. With you watching your comrades plant the Russian flag in Berlin. Like in COD WAW (and real life, I guess).

Ok, but not interesting at all, very generic

This game is a good classic. It's very enjoyable even if it is an old game. Playing this is exciting because you are playing the original call of duty.

You cannot play as an orc but still 10/10

Its a good game. First time playing any of the COD games, and i can see why it got popular. To enjoy it though, Dont choose any of the last hardest difficulties. As someone who hasnt ever really played fps games, this made me rage far to many times to count. But fun. Def fun. Especially with the tanks. Only level i didnt die on once!

always the OG for life

good

honestly for the first game in a long franchise great gameplay i quite enjoy it

too many errors and issues trying to play single player

Shitty campaign on veteran, do better cod

Holds up pretty dang well considering its 2003 release year. Definitely cool to switch between different locations especially getting a bit of the Stalingrad experience. I would recommend using Notepad++ to unlock 4k resolution, as this fix made the game that much better on a modern platform. Give it a shot!

This is a great game. This was when Call Of Duty actually cared about representing history in its game whilst still being fun.

The ending is just beautiful, I'm glad that I bought this game, great game.

it the first game of the historical franchise i love call of duty series and i'm enjoying play the old games of that series 10/10

why on gods green earth does this game have you on rails in a truck on the highest difficulty when the enemy can 1 shot you in less than a second, for gods sake i have less than 3 seconds to kill 3 dudes on the road, then flip around and shot a car flying at me at mock Jesus before i die... i'm gonna crash out.

Absolutely amazing experience. Shows the great depth of the expendability of lives during WWII, how there were so many sides, perspectives, that it was a long, hard, war. Coming from someone who has played it three times.

This game did not age well at all night missions are too dark and the health not regenerating ruins it for me not worth the price pick COD 2 instead

A nostalgic game, which still holds up very well today!

I had great fun replaying this gem! If you like the COD Campaigns, this is for you!

Back in a bygone era when CoD had respect for itself, where has the time gone..

I have played this game many times and still enjoy it to this day. Once set up screen wise it is as much fun as any FPS game out there

So much fun. Remembering what Call of Duty used to be.

Very fun game. Made when COD actually cared about historical accuracy

NOSTALgia HITS again one of the best games to be ever made sadly the newer ones have failed ,

OG Run and gun but historically kick-assful

Good game, the soldier on the cover poked me in the eye

Runs great on Windows 11!!! I didn't expect that to be honest. It's a fun game, i enjoy playing it even after 20 years of my first playthrough.

Maybe one day this game will receive the remake it deserves

I Got this game in 2024 and it was great. It ran at maximum graphics on my laptop (they are not the greatest but are still clean enough) I loved the simple mission briefs and the characters. The story was amazing and the music great.

Call of Duty with health packs is a trip

CoD is one of the most popular games in the whole world for a lot of good reasons. I hate to say, I could care less about the series the longer it goes on. But you cannot discount the absolute cinematic presentation that was established in the first game that carried on to set the standard for FPS storytelling that the franchise still bears today. I quickly attempted to get my hands on the first few games as they were released even though I only had a gamecube at the time. I was borrowing consoles and copies from friends to play on different platforms. However in the last decade I have come to appreciate every single moment when I play the first game. I come back to this game time and time again not only because it is a time capsule of game development accomplishment, but the fact that it's pure fun. If you updated the graphics to current gen but kept the script and voice acting the same, you would never know this game was released in 2003 and still holds as an exciting and thrilling experience from beginning to end. This is one of the most important games in history and it's still to this day insanely fun to play through.

It's really hard but so much fun!

An all time classic, basic gameplay is still fun and sound design is great. I only hope one day, they will patch it for modern systems so it can support widescreen properly and fix other issues. Until that pcgamingwiki is your best friend for finding fixes.

Maybe it's just the nostalgia, but I really enjoy playing the FPS games that started it all!

This is unironically the loudest game i've ever played.

That fucking machine gun noise which has a duration of 0.5 seconds and keeps looping for minutes will haunt me forever.

If you hate your neighbours and want to annoy them, play this on a surround 7.1 setup. (yes, the game supports that, but EAX can be a bitch to properly set up)