The Most Notorious Call of Duty Metas

gamerant.com:

When it comes to single-player games, players much more likely to experiment with all the weapons available to them. While players may end up picking a favorite, they probably won't put too much thought into how well it performs. Multiplayer games, on the other hand, make this a vital part of the experience. When players unlock a new weapon in Call of Duty, everything from its reload speed to its accuracy is scrutinized heavily, and each weapon's viability soon becomes widespread knowledge in the community. This eventually leads to something called a «meta,» when players discover the optimal loadout to use, and it quickly becomes the most common class seen online.

Call of Duty has been around for quite some time now, and over the last two decades or so, the series has seen plenty of metas come and go. While some of these metas only lasted a few weeks before they were patched out by the developers to maintain the game's balance, some lasted a lot longer, and some are even talked about today, living on in infamy.

Sledgehammer Games Should Develop Call of Duty: Ghosts 2

While online multiplayer had been a part of the Call of Duty franchise since its debut in 2003, it only really gained mainstream attention with the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007. With more players than ever, it didn't take long for fans to find and exploit the series' first infamous meta weapon, the M16.

A three-round burst, medium-long range rifle, the M16 has been a staple of the Call of Duty franchise, but it's never been quite as overpowered as it was in its debut appearance. With the Stopping Power Perk equipped, players were capable of killing an opponent in just one burst, and with the M16 boasting some of the highest accuracy of any