Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

• 1. Introduction

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  Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, released in 2020, carried a production budget of more than 700 million US dollars. That is an enormous sum for a game that started out as something else entirely.

  It was not supposed to belong to the Black Ops family at all. A dispute behind the scenes changed its identity, and it changed the working lives of the people who had to finish it.

  Why did a project never meant to carry the Black Ops name end up wearing it? And what did players and critics make of the result?

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• 2. Handoff Between Studios

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  In May 2019, Activision gave Treyarch the lead on a project it had not expected to inherit. The game had begun as a collaboration between Raven Software and Sledgehammer Games, and it was not planned as a Black Ops title. Frequent disagreements between those two studios pushed Activision to change course.

  Journalist Jason Schreier reported that some Treyarch employees were unhappy about the news. They told him they were "bracing for brutal overtime hours", much like the crunch they had faced on their previous game, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 from 2018.

  Schreier also reported that Treyarch would be the sole lead, with Sledgehammer and Raven supporting. Activision told a different story in August 2020, saying Treyarch and Raven were co-developing the game. Raven confirmed later that month that it was leading the campaign.

  In the finished product, Treyarch ran production on multiplayer and Zombies, while Raven built the single-player story. The game became the seventeenth main installment in the Call of Duty series and the sixth entry in the Black Ops line.

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• 3. Sound of the Eighties

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  Composer Jack Wall had already scored several Black Ops games, including Call of Duty: Black Ops II from 2012, when this one landed on his desk. He was delighted to hear it would be set in the 1980s. He felt that much of his earlier work, including his scores for the Mass Effect games, had been shaped by that decade.

  Before writing a note, Wall spent weeks going through story treatments and documents on level design and pacing. Brian Tuey, the audio director at Treyarch, supplied the material.

  For the main theme, called "Cold War", Wall wanted a sound that would immediately evoke the era. He combined a Soviet-sounding choir with orchestral instruments and synthesizers from the 1980s. The list included the Moog Modular, the Minimoog and the CS-80, plus other soft synths.

  His goal was a "dark, shadowy Black Ops feel in the time of larger-than-life Cold War political figures like Reagan and Brezhnev." He names it the track he is most proud of, and says it best captures the game's "signature".

  For the multiplayer side, Wall teamed up with the musician Big Giant Circles. Together they wrote an "energetic" theme song called "Rising Tide".

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• 4. Puzzles Before Launch

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  On the 7th of August 2020, Activision shipped locked crates to influencers in the Call of Duty community. The recipients were told not to open them until the 10th. Two days after the shipping date, cryptic messages started appearing for players of Call of Duty: Warzone, including the text "know your history".

  On the 10th, influencers uncovered a website called PawnTakesPawn.com. From the 14th, fans could watch VHS tapes there. The tapes held news segments and footage tied to different years of the Cold War.

  At random moments in the tapes, two-digit nixie tube combinations flashed up. Fans needed them to solve ciphers. Each tape also hid one set of coordinates that pointed to a spot inside Warzone.

  Once every cipher was solved, a teaser trailer arrived on the 19th of August. It featured footage from an interview with the KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov, who was discussing active measures. China banned the teaser because of a brief snippet of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. A edited version of about a minute was released worldwide instead.

  Kotaku writer Ian Walker accused Activision of legitimating Bezmenov's views by using his interview. Walker argued that those views attract far-right conspiracy theories and personalities. He also objected that the interview appeared without proper context.

  The full reveal came on the 26th of August, as an in-game event in Warzone. The puzzle-and-crate routine returned on the 23rd of September, when teasers for Zombies appeared on PawnTakesPawn.com. The YouTubers NoahJ456 and MrDalekJD were among those sent crates holding 1980s technology and ciphers. Zombies was fully revealed on the 30th of September.

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• 5. Choices in the Campaign

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  The campaign begins with a character that the player builds. Players choose an intelligence agency, skin tone, nationality and gender. They also pick personality traits that grant perks in play.

  Missions are non-linear, so players can tackle objectives in several ways. Between missions, the action pauses at a safe house. There players review evidence, talk with non-player characters and plan upcoming operations on an evidence board. Several choices made along the way decide which of multiple endings the player sees.

  The story opens in January 1981 in Amsterdam. The CIA operatives Russell Adler, Alex Mason and Frank Woods go after Qasim Javadi and Arash Kadivar, who played roles in the Iran hostage crisis. Bruce Thomas voices Adler, Chris Payne Gilbert voices Mason, and Damon Victor Allen voices Woods.

  Qasim's interrogation sends the trio to an airfield in Turkey. There they watch Arash execute everyone in the vehicle he arrived in. Cornered, he gloats that the Soviet spy Perseus organized the hostage crisis. Adler had believed Perseus was dead.

  Under the authority of President Ronald Reagan, a black operation team is formed to stop Perseus. It includes the MI6 officer Helen Park, the CIA operative Lawrence Sims and the Mossad operative Eleazar "Lazar" Azoulay. Mason and Woods give tactical support. The last member is a figure known only as "Bell", who supposedly served with Adler and Sims in MACV-SOG during the Vietnam War.

  Operating from a safe house in West Berlin, the team chases a Russian mafia boss named Anton Volkov. Clues lead them into Operation Greenlight, a secret American program that planted neutron bombs in every major European city. Perseus has stolen the detonation codes, and he could devastate Europe and pin the blame on the United States.

  Then comes the twist. Bell is revealed as an agent of Perseus, shot by Arash in Turkey out of jealousy. Adler found Bell afterward and used Project MKUltra to brainwash them into believing they were his comrade.

  With Bell's memory restored, the player decides what happens next. Bell can stay loyal to Perseus and send Adler to the Duga radar array, too far away to stop the nukes. Or Bell can betray Perseus and help the CIA assault his headquarters on the Solovetsky Islands, where the transmitters for the detonation signal are destroyed.

  Later, Adler takes Bell aside and assures them the choice was freely made and that they are a hero. Then he eliminates them as a loose end for the CIA.

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• 6. Multiplayer and Zombies

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  VIP Escort is one of three new multiplayer modes in Black Ops Cold War. Two teams of six face off. One team escorts a randomly chosen teammate to one of two exfiltration sites, and the other tries to eliminate that player. Teams swap roles after each round, and the first to four points wins.

  Combined Arms puts two teams of twelve on large maps with transport vehicles. They fight to control five or six capture zones, and the first team to 400 points wins. Fireteam: Dirty Bomb sends ten teams of four across large maps to collect and deposit uranium in dirty bombs. The team that destroys the most dirty bombs wins.

  Standard modes such as Team Deathmatch, Domination and Hardpoint also return. Players climb through 55 levels to unlock weapons, perks and scorestreaks. Weapons can be tuned in the Gunsmith, which returns from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), with attachments such as foregrips, barrels and optics.

  The multiplayer mode has its own storyline. In January 1984, a Perseus cell led by Vikhor "Stitch" Kuzmin raids Adler's West Berlin safe house. Stitch oversaw production of the Nova 6 bio-weapon on Rebirth Island and vowed revenge after Adler captured and tortured him there in 1968. Adler is captured, and Woods later leads a rescue in Verdansk.

  By August 1984, Hudson and Mason are torturing Adler to break his programming. Woods, Adler, Mason and Hudson then confront Stitch in a ruined Verdansk. Stitch reveals he took over the Perseus mantle from a predecessor who died of cancer in 1983. He surrenders willingly, taunts Adler, and a gunshot is heard as the scene cuts to black.

  In Zombies, one to four players belong to a CIA-backed response team named Requiem. They fight endless undead hordes that grow in number and difficulty with each round. The four main maps are Die Maschine, Firebase Z, Mauer der Toten and Forsaken.

  Players spend Essence points to open doors and buy upgrades, including perks and the weapon boosts from the Pack-a-Punch machine. They can also earn salvage to craft equipment and armor. Unlike earlier Zombies modes, which began with only a pistol, this one lets players bring their own customized weapon.

  At the end of round 10, and every five rounds after, players may call a helicopter and exfiltrate. They must reach an exfil point and kill every zombie nearby before the time runs out. Success pays out Aetherium Crystals, which permanently upgrade perks, weapon classes and ammo mods.

  Three extra modes round things out. Dead Ops Arcade 3 is played from a top-down view and ends in a boss fight. Onslaught puts two players on multiplayer maps to defend areas marked by a Dark Aether orb. It stayed exclusive to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 until November 2021. Outbreak sets players in a large zone in the Ural Mountains, with main and side objectives and the option to warp to a harder zone.

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• 7. Critical Reception

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  Metacritic calculated a weighted average of 76/100 for Black Ops Cold War, which it labeled "generally favorable reviews". The score drew on 42 reviews for the PlayStation 5 version, 31 for Windows and 21 for Xbox Series X/S. OpenCritic found that 61% of critics recommended the game.

  GameSpot's Kallie Plagge praised the open-ended campaign design. She singled out a mission that gives players "free rein" to explore a KGB building, calling it "a showcase for both stealth and freedom of choice". IGN's Ryan McCaffrey liked the safe house and the character customization, but found the story weaker than the one in Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010).

  Game Informer's Daniel Tack called the campaign an "enjoyable-but-short return to form for Black Ops". PC Gamer's Morgan Park was less impressed. He said the stealth missions and non-player interactions were "under-explored or fleeting", and he thought the "perplexing" plot ended abruptly.

  Multiplayer divided reviewers. IGN's Simon Cardy gave it 6/10, calling it a step back from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) in map design, visuals and day-one content. Plagge found it "clumsier", noting that mounting weapons and switching fire rate had been dropped.

  Others were kinder to the maps. GamesRadar+'s Ford James thought the selection improved on the Modern Warfare maps, which he called "terrible". Kevin Dunsmore of Hardcore Gamer said the "three-lane" layouts kept "engagements high and wandering about minimal".

  Zombies earned mostly positive reviews. IGN's David Jagneaux scored it 7/10, praising the "layered" design of Die Maschine and the customized starting weapon. He criticized the missing split-screen support and the features dropped from Zombies in Black Ops 4. PCGamesN's Jordan Forward liked the pre-game loadouts and the health bars on all enemies, which he saw as friendlier to newcomers.

  Plagge called the learning curve "manageable" but said the difficulty "rapidly" climbed after the first ten rounds. Jordan Middler of Video Games Chronicle wrote that the mode "excels" when played with friends.

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• 8. Sales and Seasons

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  Black Ops Cold War went on sale on the 13th of November 2020 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. Pre-orders earned access to an open multiplayer beta over two weekends. The first, from the 8th to the 12th of October, was limited to PlayStation 4. The second, from the 15th to the 20th of October, also covered Windows and Xbox One.

  The Windows version launched exclusively on Battle.net. It arrived on Steam in March 2023.

  According to the NPD Group, the game was the best-selling title of 2020 in the United States. By February 2021, it ranked twentieth in lifetime dollar sales there. SuperData Research reported 5.7 million digital units sold in November 2020.

  In the United Kingdom, it topped the digital charts for the week ending the 13th of November, with almost 39% higher sales than Modern Warfare. Retail sales, however, dropped by 64%. In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version sold 84,475 physical copies in its first week, making it the top retail game. The PlayStation 5 version sold 6,045 copies and ranked nineteenth. By December 2024, total sales reached 30 million copies.

  Treyarch kept the game going with free seasonal updates adding maps, weapons, characters and modes. Each season had a premium battle pass and cosmetics sold through an in-game store. Six seasons arrived: the 16th of December 2020, the 25th of February 2021, the 22nd of April, the 17th of June, the 13th of August, and the 7th of October for the sixth and last.

  Some seasons brought crossover characters, including John Rambo, John McClane, Ghostface, Captain Price and Arthur Kingsley from Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021). The next chapter in the line, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, was released on the 25th of October 2024.

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