Call of Duty: 10 Most Brutal Villains In The Franchise, Ranked

Villains throughout video games commit terrible deeds that mark big changes in the story and create extremely memorable moments that live with us forever. Call of Duty is no stranger to creating these moments. Most fans of the franchise can recall their reactions and feelings when they witnessed General Shepherd gun down Ghost and Roach in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

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It's one of the greatest moments in the franchise. The villains throughout the Call of Duty games have done extremely brutal things to either the characters or in the plot as a whole. Here are the 10 most brutal villains in the franchise, ranked.

Updated on November 2nd, 2023 by Gregory Louis Gomez: One of the areas where Call of Duty attempts to outdo itself every year is the villains. Some of them have ended up becoming iconic characters over time, such as General Shepard or Edward Richtofen. These characters are typically known for their uncompromising personalities and heavy-handed nature in achieving their goals. This, usually coupled with some strong voice acting (from the likes of Lance Henriksen, Nolan North, and others), has contributed to having these characters become truly memorable. Bearing this in mind, we've decided to add a few more entries to this list of Call of Duty's most brutal villains.

16 Edward Richtofen

Call of Duty: World At War

• Torture
• Biological warfare
• Genocide

While his name sounds like a medication one would take for a nasty headache, this doesn't mean he's not to be taken seriously. There's a debate among fans about whether he's a conventional villain, or an anti-hero, or something completely different. Still, most players view him as a villain in the franchise.

His actions throughout the storyline make him somewhat of an anti-hero or a full-on villain. Ultimately though, he becomes one of the good guys, trying to stop the evil version of himself. He gets himself a pass in this list, as the least brutal villain in the franchise.

15 Khaled Al-Asad

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

• Staging a bloody coup
• Detonating a Nuclear Weapon

Serving as the main villain of the first act of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Khaled Al-Asad was a terrible man that worked closely with Imran Zakhaev.

He committed terrible deeds in his rise to power. For example, he ordered citizens to be executed in the streets for being loyal to the current president, Yasir Al-Fulani. Khaled ends up capturing Al-Fulani and executes him on television. Towards the end of act one, Khaled Al-Asad is finally captured by Captain Price, Soap, and his team. Price ends up killing Al-Asad after discovering that Imran Zakhaev is still alive.

14 General Barkov

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

• Chemical warfare
• Torture
• Mass Murder

The newest game in the franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, released in 2019 brought a return to the traditional campaign mode that was missing from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. General Barkov serves as one of the main villains in the game. Barkov is the general of the Russian army and does cruel things throughout the campaign missions such as unleashing a chemical gas that kills several civilians and also tortures one of the main protagonists, Farah, and her brother Hadir.

He's eventually taken down by Farah in the final mission of the Modern Warfare campaign. Barkov has become a quite memorable villain and could possibly get more backstory in a potential sequel.

13 Nikita Dragovich

Call of Duty: Black Ops

• Chemical warfare
• Torture & Murder of his men
• Brainwashing

Call of Duty: Black Ops was so ahead of its time when it was released in 2010. The campaign mode brought so many crazy twists and turns that hold up just as well as the Shepherd betrayal scene. Players step into the shoes of Alex Mason in different missions, while he's trying to repair his mind after being turned into a sleeper agent. The person responsible for brainwashing him was Nikita Dragovich, who is the main villain of the game.

Not only does he turn an American against his people, but he also has a hand in weaponizing Nova 6, a powerful biochemical weapon that he intended on unleashing upon the United States. Thankfully, however, his plan was thwarted in the final mission. He may not be not one of the most memorable but definitely did extremely brutal things throughout the game.

12 Gabriel T. Rorke

Call of Duty: Ghosts

• Murder
• Torture

Call of Duty: Ghosts had a very different story than some of the past games. It was a lot more personal and while not as memorable as the Modern Warfare and Black Ops games, it did a great job of trying something new and refreshing. The main villain of the story, Rorke is extremely cruel and takes things way too far in his quest for revenge.

He was formerly the leader of the Ghosts but was left for dead in a mission gone wrong. After surviving, the Federation tortured and brainwashed him to turn against his former fellow soldiers. One of the most brutal acts Rorke committed was killing Elias T. Walker in front of his sons. It was terribly cruel but shaped him as a great villain that players wanted to see dead.

11 Perseus

Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War

• Genocide
• Nuclear proliferation

Depending on the player's choices, Perseus might be one of the most ruthless villains in any COD game. Not only is he potentially responsible for the complete annihilation of Western Europe via stolen nuclear weapons, but he also takes great pleasure in assisting Bell in wiping out their former NATO compatriots (even applauding the player for their lack of mercy).

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By  Greg Gomez

Perseus is an ideologue who sees only one way forward; his way. Even his home country, the USSR, is not safe from his domineering nature as shown in one of the possible endings for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, in which he is shown as willing to kill and replace members of the government that don't align with his worldview.

10 Jonathan Irons

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

• Mass Murder
• Biological warfare
• Human experimentation

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare made huge changes to the franchise. Taking the futuristic setting to the next level, Advanced Warfare brought in Exo-Suits and a focus on a more cinematic feel to the campaign mode. Jonathan Irons serves as the primary villain of Advanced Warfare after he betrays his soldiers and is revealed to be working on a biological weapon that would kill countless innocent people.

He's really just as bad as Shepherd. While his betrayal is certainly not on the level of when Ghost and Roach are killed, it's still a great twist overall. And as an added bonus, he's portrayed by the iconic eye-candy, Kevin Spacey.

9 Salen Kotch

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

• Terrorism
• Murder

Speaking of eye-candy, let's give it up for Kit Harrington's role in the CoD franchise. He nearly destroyed the planet Earth! But even if that attempt wasn't successful, he did wage war on Earth. Salen Koch is a blood-thirsty dictator with a great sense of style.

All of the above screams class and pure awesomeness on the ruthless radar. There are times when he's almost better than Mendenez and the rest of the sharks on the list. His only goal is to conquer Earth, and nothing can stand in his way.

8 Lev Kravchenko

Call of Duty: Black Ops

• Torture & murder of his men
• Brainwashing
• Chemical warfare

As Dragovich's right-hand man, Kravchenko is every bit as brutal as his boss if not more so if only for the fact that he is more than willing to get his hands dirty. Kravchenko seems to subtly enjoy physically and psychologically torturing both his enemies and even his own men if it furthers his ends.

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Nowhere is this more obvious than in the first Black Ops, in which Lev can be seen gouging out Grigori Weaver's eye, beating Mason to a pulp, testing Nova 6 on his own soldiers, and so on. Kravchenko is essentially a brawler with political power. He is big and mean but also quite smart, which makes him especially dangerous.

7 Imran Zakhaev

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

• Terrorism
• Funding a coup
• Launching nuclear missiles

Following the end of the first act, Imran Zakhaev takes over as the main villain in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. He really started the foundation for the movements that would eventually lead to World War III in Modern Warfare 3. He proved to be hard to kill, surviving an assassination attempt by John Price years prior to the present-day story that only left him losing his left arm.

Zakhaev is the real mastermind behind the events in the Modern Warfare trilogy. He made a puppet out of everyone that served him, until his death at the end of the campaign mode in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.