The year is 2011, and civil war has broken out in Russia between the Russian government and Russian ultranationalists under the command of Imran Zakhaev who seek to restore Russia back to its former Soviet-style leadership. A revolution has toppled a regime in an unnamed Arabic country which has ties to the Russian ultranationalists, with Khaled al-Asad coming to power. These two simultaneous events are causing fear that al-Asad and Zakhaev might form an alliance and use nuclear weapons against the West. In response to these concerns, the United States and the United Kingdom conduct joint operations to put down both uprisings, without putting their own nations' security at risk. Will they succeed?
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The perk system, killstreaks, and customisable loadouts that feel completely standard in shooters today all trace back to this game. It's been copied so thoroughly by other studios that it's now considered unusual for a modern shooter not to have some version of it.
Craig Fairbrass pulled double duty on this one, voicing both Gaz and a character called Wallcroft, before going on to become a very different fan favourite as Ghost in Modern Warfare 2.
The game never made it onto shelves in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, where it was banned over its depiction of violence against Islamic soldiers.
That soldier staring out from the cover isn't a stock model or an actor. It's actually Mark Rubin, who worked at Infinity Ward at the time.
PlayStation 3 owners picking this up at launch wouldn't have found a single trophy to earn. Sony's trophy system simply hadn't been built into the platform yet when the game shipped.
Long-time players will remember the riverside house on Overgrown, the one with a climbable roof and a machine gun tucked in the attic, affectionately nicknamed 'grandma's house' by the community for reasons nobody can quite agree on. That same house was quietly rebuilt inside Verdansk when Warzone launched.
Vacant got its own full multiplayer remake eventually, but a chunk of the original map is also tucked away near Port on the Verdansk map in Warzone, for anyone who fancies a nostalgic detour.
This one picked up a spot in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die, putting it alongside decades of games considered essential playing.
Darren Aronofsky's 2008 film The Wrestler has a scene where a kid explains the game to Randy 'The Ram' Robinson while they're playing a fictional title on an old console together, a nice little nod to how big it had become in pop culture by then.
The game gets a proper appearance in the 2010 film Kick-Ass, another sign of how quickly it became shorthand for gaming culture at the time.
