It is the sequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), serving as the third and final installment in the original Modern Warfare trilogy and the eighth Call of Duty installment overall. A separate version for the Nintendo DS was developed by n-Space, while Treyarch developed the game's Wii port.

2024's Call of Duty game will reportedly be the next game in the Black Ops series, and will once again be set against historical real-world events. This time, the series appears primed to visit more recent history with the Gulf War of the early 1990s, as was previously rumored.