Melee

In the Call of Duty series, the melee attack is a close-quarters attack with the player's knife or gun butt that damages/kills the opponent.

Pre-Modern Warfare


Before Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, melee attacks consisted of pistol whips and smacks with the gun butt. While the latter was capable of an instant kill, historically the former has not been able to do so.

In Call of Duty and United Offensive, when all equipment had to be equipped, it was possible to melee with every piece of equipment, including grenades, smoke grenades, satchel charges, and binoculars. Melee damage for these other pieces of equipment had the same melee damage as a pistol (50), and as such were used only for humiliation kills. Melee damage from primary guns, on the other hand, was more substantial, and a melee hit to the head, body, or back was enough to kill. However, in practice, this was rarely achieved. For one, melee attacks had extremely short range (about 3 feet). In addition, melee attacks connected inconsistently, and when they did connect, they often connected on the shoulders or legs, where they would be negatively affected by multipliers. Because of these, melee attacks did not see much use.

Call of Duty 2 made several changes to melee damage. Because equipment was no longer selectable, it was no longer possible to melee with grenades or the like. Melee damage for all non-pistol weapons was made consistent (150 damage), making it fatal no matter where the melee hit connected. Connection was improved also, although this may have been due to the enlargement of player hitboxes in Call of Duty 2. Pistols still continued to do 50 damage. Because melee hits were now effectively instant kills, they could be utilized more often. However, melee attacks still had very short range and no lunge.

In Call of Duty 3, the player could melee attack only with primary weapons. As with other games, the melee attack would usually result in an instant kill. Sometimes, the attack would merely injure a soldier. Rarely, though, the attack would put an enemy into last stand. Call of Duty 3 also had scripted CQC battles with German soldiers. The player would wrestle for a gun and defeat the German either by knocking out the German with a melee attack or delivering a form of gruesome death, such as pulling the pin on a grenade hanging from the Nazi's shirt, or throwing him headfirst off a balcony.

Post-Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare brought a sweeping change to the melee attack in the form of the knife. Each weapon had the same melee attack, a slash or stab with a knife capable of dealing an instant kill. Also the mp5 and pistol are the weapons with the fastest knife reload, meaning that if you knife one opponent you can knife a second time faster. In addition, the range was increased to about 5 feet, as a slight lunge was created. The ability to sprint, use perks, and deal an instant kill melee while carrying around light weaponry allowed players to play entire games using only the knife. However, the knife's connection wasn't perfect, and usually missed fast moving players.

Call of Duty: World at War saw a sudden nerf to the knife; although it was still an instant kill, its connection was extremely poor, and the range was dramatically decreased. However, World at War did see the proliferation of multiple melee weapons. The bayonet, which could be attached to rifles, the M1897 Trench Gun and the bolt-action rifles (with the exception of PTRS-41), allowed for melee attacks at longer ranges, about 6 feet. Additionally, if the player's weapon's current clip is empty, the player will swing their knife significantly faster. The Bowie Knife, available only on Der Riese, increases knife damage from 150 to 1150, allowing one-hit-kills against the zombies for the first 12 rounds. In campaign, the player will occasionally be attacked by banzai chargers sending them into a melee fight sequence. Zombies only use the melee attack with bare hands, and Hellhounds bite.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 introduced a new knife model, with the same damage and increased range from Call of Duty 4. In World at War ' s spirit, though, it added another melee weapon, the Tactical Knife, which allowed for faster melee speed and recovery. Modern Warfare 2 also featured several perks conducive to knife-only plays. Commando was the most infamous for more than doubling melee range from 3.5 feet to 10 feet. The riot shield is also a melee weapon. In the campaign, cinematic techniques were introduced for the dramatic sequences of the game; stabbing the guard at the entrance of Site Hotel Bravo.

In Call of Duty: Black Ops, the knife returns once again. In Campaign, there are several scripted, cinematic techniques the player can use to melee as well. They are: choking a guard with a garrote, hitting a guard with a rock, wielding unique weapons like the Prison Knife, SOG Knife, and the Karambit Knife, stabbing guards in the neck and taking their uniforms, pushing an enemy off a guard house, slitting VC's throats as they sleep, stabbing enemy workers in the neck with a Tomahawk, pulling an enemy down a ladder, and choking and drowning a person at the same time. Similar to the Tactical Knife, a new secondary weapon called the Ballistic Knife is included in multiplayer and provides a faster knife lunge and recovery, as well as the ability to fire the blade itself from the handle, but it requires a parabolic trajectory aiming to take targets at a distance.

The Bowie Knife also returns from Call of Duty: World at War and is an available weapon in the Nazi Zombies maps Kino der Toten, "Five", Shangri-La, and Moon. Zombies only use their hands to attack. Hellhounds bite and claw the player. Crawler Zombies claw at the player. There is also a new melee weapon called the Sickle included in the Nazi Zombies maps Ascension and Call of the Dead.

Cinematic techniques return in Modern Warfare 3 on certain occasions, such as slitting a Militia's throat in Back on the Grid, or choking and hanging Makarov at the end of the game. The Tactical Knife and Riot Shield returned in multiplayer.

Trivia

 * In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, using the /give location_selector_mp console command in multiplayer will give the player an invisible weapon, but if the player switches to third person with the command /cg_thirdPerson 1, and they melee, the melee with not be with the knife, but will indeed be with the gun (which is an AK-47 from third person perspective). This suggests that the gun bash was still going to be used, but replaced with the concept of a knife very early in development.
 * In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, through console commands the player can receive the Brick Blaster and by meleeing, the player can see it does not use a knife, but pistol whips instead.
 * Similar to stated above, in Call of Duty: World at War, if the player lets the banzai charger get to them, the player will be knocked down and they will have to press the melee button to move the charger's bayonet out of the way, he will then stumble, allowing the player to pull out their knife and stab him in the neck.
 * In Call of Duty: World at War: Final Fronts, the melee action is not performed with a knife. Rather, it is performed with the rifle's butt stock, like the pre-Modern Warfare games.
 * In all the Modern Warfare games, if one goes prone and melees, the animation in 3rd person will show the player smacking with the gun, but in 1st person, the melee is done with the default knife.