Which Call of Duty game first introduced Prestige levels?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the first Call of Duty game to introduce Prestige levels. In its console multiplayer mode, players who reached the maximum rank of 55 could enter Prestige, resetting their level and giving up unlocked weapons, perks, and other progression rewards.

The reset was voluntary but offered a distinctive Prestige insignia and a way to continue progressing after reaching the normal level cap. Players could repeat the process up to 10 times, with a different emblem associated with each Prestige rank. This system turned multiplayer progression into a long-term challenge and became one of the series’ defining features.

The feature is sometimes incorrectly attributed to World at War or later Black Ops games because Treyarch expanded and popularized it. However, those games inherited the idea from Call of Duty 4, which introduced the core level-reset structure in 2007. The original PC and Mac versions did not offer Prestige mode in the same way as the console versions.