New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The Queen of Rap is on a roll. At the tail end of 2023, she released the much-anticipated album Pink Friday 2, embellishing it with the daily release of additional songs for a full week in December—and following it up with a world tour in 2024. She's not one for a hiatus, either. After less than a year,
Minaj announced yet another album in 2025 and confirmed she'd go on tour soon after, concluding that she "ain't going nowhere."
The new studio release will add further depth to the Trinidadian-born singer's truly prolific career, which has seen her songs appear on nearly 200 charts and won her accolades from the American Music Awards, BET Awards, MTV and MTV Europe Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and more.
Yet there's more to Nicki Minaj than her artistry. Her lasting legacy extends beyond rap and the overall music world. That's made especially clear when you look at how she literally changed the game for Call of Duty—which the Guinness World Records recognizes as history's best-selling first-person shooter game.
The rise and lasting popularity of Call of Duty
Activision released the first iteration of Call of Duty in 2003, putting players in an exciting World War II setting that turned heads. However, it wasn't until Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was launched in 2007 that the series truly made a breakthrough. Selling over 13 million copies in just two years, it introduced a more contemporary setting and fast-paced gameplay that kept fans riveted and paved the way for the franchise's further success with an additional Black Ops story arc. As of October 2023, Call of Duty has sold over half a billion games and boasts roughly 100 million active players on all its platforms. That includes Call of Duty Mobile—which, in November 2024, hit a milestone when it crossed 1 billion downloads across the Apple and Google Play Stores. One key reason why Call of Duty remains so popular more than 20 years later is that its mechanics made it especially appealing for the billion-dollar industry that is esports.
Professional gamers who want to play the title in competitive settings can test their skills in the Call of Duty League, Call of Duty Challengers, and World of Warzone, where some of esports' longest-standing team rivalries make tournaments more tense and exciting. With each event peaking at an average of 300,000 viewers and offering prize pools worth up to $1 million, the franchised and battle royale formats seen in Call of Duty's esports seasons mean tournaments continue to entice professional players and fans alike with every passing year. That's especially true since the game's esports scene is as engaging for spectators as it is for gamers. Thanks to an exclusive partnership with YouTube and streamers on platforms like Twitch boosting viewership for the game's major tournament events, it's easier than ever to watch Call of Duty—especially for fans who can't physically make it to venues across North America and Europe.
Further expansions in the esports industry at large now help the game appeal to enthusiasts who wish to make both in-person and online viewing experiences more immersive and interactive, particularly by facilitating the ability to speculate on match outcomes. With teams ranging from the Atlanta FaZe to the Vegas Legion competing in a number of game modes including Hardpoint, Search & Destroy, and Control, there are plenty of data points fans can analyze to predict how tournaments will turn out. The blockchain's additional rise in popularity has also emerged to complement the digital nature of playing and watching esports, leading to the likes of the Thunderpick platform engaging further subsets of fans who wish to bet on Call of Duty using cryptocurrency tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Because the platform facilitates quicker, more secure, and more anonymous transactions, it has helped the first-shooter franchise attract more fans with every tournament.
With these efforts, it's clear that Call of Duty isn't satisfied with sitting on its laurels—it continues to work with various actors to further expand its popularity and success. By collaborating with none other than Nicki Minaj, it's been able to change the game even further.
How Nicki Minaj helped change the game—literally
The Call of Duty franchise doesn't shy away from immersing itself in pop culture, and that's arguably the second reason why it remains so popular today. It's published comic series with Dark Horse and exclusive short stories on the Amazon Kindle platform, and many of its installments feature easter eggs from movies and TV shows ranging from Donnie Darko to The Walking Dead. It's thus no surprise that, for hip-hop's 50th anniversary, Call of Duty collaborated with a number of the genre's most influential and high-profile artists. That includes long-time partner Snoop Dogg, newcomer 21 Savage—and, of course, Nicki Minaj. Now, fans of the beloved first-shooter franchise can play not just her songs, but audio cues from the Queen of Rap herself in-game, resulting in a number of game lobby background music changes, sound effects, voice lines, and even exclusive music packs that can enhance engagement, customization, and overall gameplay for Call of Duty and Nicki Minaj fans alike.
Yet that's not all. With her introduction to Call of Duty Warzone and Modern Warfare 2 and 3, Minaj officially became Call of Duty's first-ever self-named female Operator. Here, the famed rapper calls her character "Ruby Da Sleeze," a reference to a 2023 song and accompanying music video off the Pink Friday 2 album titled Red Ruby Da Sleeze. Ruby's avatar closely resembles Minaj herself, dressed to the nines in high heels, a metallic pink bodysuit and the artist's signature straight pink locks to match. However, she also has a few tricks up her sleeve. Fans who want to play as Nicki Minaj can now enjoy unique finishing moves, including "Get Bodied"—which sees Ruby Da Sleeze jumping onto the back of her opponent before grinding them down with her sharp stilettos. In terms of visual elements, Ruby doesn't disappoint, either. She decorates every surface she fires at with pink splashes, and any enemy she defeats bursts into Pepto Bismol-pink confetti. Gamers also get a unique Nicki Minaj-themed loading screen as they wait for the game to load.
What this landmark collaboration has done is change the game in ways that appeal to fans of both Minaj's music and the first-person shooter video game genre. It effectively introduced new content and abilities to provide players with even more things to discover and achieve. That's perfectly illustrated by the experiences of Twitch streamer Reidboyy, who—after a grueling 76 hours—managed to nab Modern Warfare 3's rarest camo while playing as Ruby da Sleeze. Every Call of Duty installment has what's known as a Mastery Camo, and the one for Modern Warfare 3 is an elusive Interstellar Camo that mimics the appearance of stars shifting on a weapon's surface. To get it, players need to unlock every other camo for the game's 36 weapons as well as defeat more than 10,000 enemies. With these feats usually taking players months to accomplish, Reidboyy made it clear that using Minaj's avatar and accompanying arsenal handily helped him achieve those goals. Minaj also has an additional themed Operator bundle available, which includes Barbie-pink weapon blueprints with inspired names like "The Baddest" and "Super Freaky," as well as a vehicle skin dubbed "Nicki Whip." These can only be unlocked after players accumulate a certain number of Call of Duty points.
With her themes drawing her own fans to the game while simultaneously keeping avid players engaged with new content, it's clear that the Queen of Rap's lasting impact holds influence even outside the world of music—and that makes it even more exciting to see what she has in store for fans in the future.
Photo credit: ZhanibekB on Flickr via CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 - no changes were made to the image]
