Melee

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

Pre-Call of Duty 4: 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, you 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-Call of Duty 4: 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. 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 (namely pistols) allowed challenging players to play entire games using only the knife.

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 decreased. However, World at War did see the proliferation of multiple melee weapons. The bayonet, which could be attached to rifles the Trenchgun and the Type 99, allowed for melee attacks at longer ranges (about 6 feet). The Bowie Knife, available only on Der Riese, increased knife damage from 200 to 1000, allowing one-hit-kills against the zombies for 12 rounds. The player will be attacked by banzai chargers sending them into a melee fight sequence. Zombies only use the hands to attack, Hellhounds bite and claw at the player.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 saw the return of Modern Warfare's knife, the same in range and damage. 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 being the most infamous for more than doubling melee range from 3.5 feet to 10 feet.The riot shield is a melee weapon.

Call of Duty: Black Ops the knife returns once again. In the Campaign, there are several ways the player can melee. They are: knifing, choking a guard with a garrote, hitting a guard with a rock, wielding unique weapons like the prison, SOG, and the Karambit knives, stabbing guards in the neck and taking there uniforms, pushing an enemy off a guard house, slitting VC's throat's as they sleep,stabbing enemy workers in the neck with a tomahawk, pull the enemy down a ladder, and grab the enemy (Nikita Dragovich) on the throat and push him into the water to drown him. Similar to the Tactical Knife, a new secondary weapon called the Ballistic Knife has a faster knife lunge and recovery. 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 and Five. Zombies only use the 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 on the new Nazi Zombies map Ascension.

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 3rd 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 3rd 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, Call of Duty: World at War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops, if the player lets the dogs get to them, they will be knocked down and they will have to press the melee button to break the dog's 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. Similar to that of 'Pre-Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare' games.
 * There is a glitch in Call of Duty: Black Ops where you will have no weapon in first person, but will be holding an invisible pistol and a knife floating in front of your hands in third person.
 * In the Nazi zombies map "Five" on Call of Duty Black Ops, if the Pentagon Thief steals all of your weapons, there is a glitch where in person you will not be holding any weapons, but in third person your player will be tapping a knife floating a few centimeters above his hand