Call of Duty: Black Ops II

• 1. Introduction

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  Call of Duty: Black Ops II took in more than $500 million in the first 24 hours after it went on sale. That figure made the 2012 first-person shooter the largest entertainment launch of all time. The record stood until Grand Theft Auto V arrived in September 2013.

  Treyarch developed the game and Activision published it. It was the ninth entry in the Call of Duty franchise and a sequel to Black Ops, which appeared in 2010. Development began soon after that earlier game shipped, and Activision promised that the follow-up would bring "meaningful innovation" to the series.

  What did that promise turn out to mean? Why does one campaign jump between two different eras of war, and who is the man tying them together? And how did a game that sold this well end up defending itself in two different courtrooms?

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• 2. A Campaign That Remembers

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  Strike Force missions are where Black Ops II breaks most sharply from every Call of Duty game before it. They appear in the 2025 storyline, and the player's choices there reshape the story rather than just the current level. Dying in one does not send the player back to a saved checkpoint. The campaign records the loss and carries on, a rule known as permadeath.

  Each Strike Force mission hands the player a different set of war assets, including unmanned aerial vehicles, jet fighters and robots. Choosing one mission locks out the others, unless the player begins a fresh campaign. Success or failure can even change the plans of the antagonist, Raul Menendez. By the final scenes, the player may have altered the outcome of an entire new Cold War.

  The regular story missions fork as well. At certain points the player picks between paths, and the choice can affect both how a level plays and where the story heads. Black Ops II was also the first game in the series to let players pick their weapons and equipment before a story mission began.

  The 2025 setting brought one more series first, futuristic warfare technology. Those choices play out across places ranging from Angola to the Cayman Islands to Haiti.

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• 3. Raul Menendez

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  In July 1986, the retired CIA operative Alex Mason, played by Sam Worthington, is living quietly in Alaska with his son David. His former handler Jason Hudson, played by Michael Keaton, turns up with bad news. Mason's friend Frank Woods has vanished in Angola while investigating an arms smuggling ring. Mason and Hudson help Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebels, then pull Woods off a barge on the Cubango River. There they meet his captor, the Nicaraguan arms dealer Raul Menendez, played by Kamar de los Reyes.

  A fire that disfigured Menendez's sister Josefina set him against the United States. The fire was linked to an American businessman's insurance fraud. Years earlier, in 1972, an earthquake had left the family destitute, and Menendez and his father began running drugs. The CIA responded by assassinating the father.

  By the end of the 1980s, the story has turned personal. During a raid on Menendez's compound in Nicaragua, Woods defies orders to take him alive. He accidentally kills Josefina instead, and Menendez is presumed dead. In fact he conspires with Manuel Noriega to fake his own death. In December 1989, during the American invasion of Panama, Woods is tricked into shooting Mason. Menendez then reveals himself and shoots Woods in the kneecaps. He had already kidnapped David, and he used the boy to force Hudson into setting the trap. Menendez murders Hudson, and the crippled Woods goes on to raise David while hiding how his father really died.

  In 2014, Menendez founds a populist movement called Cordis Die. In 2018 the group launches a cyberattack that cripples the Chinese stock exchanges. That sparks a Second Cold War between NATO and the Strategic Defense Coalition, led by Tian Zhao. By 2025, Cordis Die claims an estimated two billion followers.

  David is now a DEVGRU Lieutenant Commander with the codename Section. He leads JSOC alongside Mike Harper and Javier Salazar. Section and Harper visit an elderly Woods at the Vault, a CIA retirement home, and hear that Menendez has recently called on him. Their hunt takes them through a Cordis Die compound in Myanmar, where they learn of a plan built around celerium, a rare-earth element that could power a computer virus. They then follow the hacker Chloe Lynch, known as Karma, to Colossus, a floating city in the Cayman Islands.

  On the 19th of June, JSOC captures Menendez in Socotra, Yemen, and holds him aboard the USS Barack Obama. Salazar, Menendez's mole inside JSOC, helps him escape. Menendez uploads his virus, hijacking every American drone and sending them toward American and Chinese cities. Section protects the President during an attack on Los Angeles at the G20, then follows Menendez to Haiti. There he subdues him and must choose whether to execute or reapprehend him. What Section decides, along with a few other matters, determines how everything ends.

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• 4. Endings and Encore

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  Four separate factors decide which ending a player sees. They are the fates of Menendez, Chloe Lynch and Alex Mason, and whether every Strike Force mission was completed.

  If Section executes Menendez, a pre-recorded video appears on YouTube in which the dead man orders Cordis Die to rise up. Supporters launch a global insurrection that burns the White House and spreads anarchy. This is the canon ending, and it sets the stage for Black Ops 7 and Black Ops III.

  If Section takes Menendez alive and Lynch survives, she stops his cyberattack and he stays in prison. He ends up watching Lynch on Jimmy Kimmel Live, insulting him while he rages in his cell. If Lynch was killed or never rescued, the cyberattack succeeds and Menendez breaks out. He murders Woods with the heart-shaped pendant, then digs up Josefina's corpse and sets himself on fire.

  Completing every Strike Force mission leads to the assassination of Zhao. China and the United States then ally, and the Second Cold War ends. That outcome is canon for Black Ops III. Mason's fate matters too. If he survives being shot by Woods, he reunites with Woods and Section at the Vault in 2025. If he does not, Section retires from the military after visiting his father's grave. That version is canon, and Mason's death sets the stage for Black Ops 6.

  The franchise kept returning to this story. Black Ops III followed in 2015 as a direct sequel. Black Ops Cold War, in 2020, is set between the events of Black Ops and Black Ops II. Black Ops 6, in 2024, takes place after Black Ops II's flashback missions. Black Ops 7, in 2025, comes after the events of Black Ops II.

  After the credits, a non-canon scene shows Woods and Menendez on stage with the heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, playing their song "Carry On". Woods plays drums and Menendez plays rhythm guitar. The band chose Woods as drummer because they had lost their original drummer, The Rev, who died of a drug overdose on the 28th of December 2009.

  Jack Wall composed the soundtrack, and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails wrote the main theme. Brian Tuey added two supplemental tracks, and the album also includes Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550. A version of "Try It Out" by Skrillex and Alvin Risk plays in the game but is missing from the album. The soundtrack came with the Hardened Edition and Care Package releases, and on iTunes and Amazon. Years later, a war track pack of Black Ops II songs reappeared in the season two battle pass for Black Ops Cold War.

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• 5. Pick 10 and Scorestreaks

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  Ten slots define the multiplayer of Black Ops II. The new Pick 10 system, part of the Create-a-Class menu, gives the player ten allocation slots to spend on guns, perks and grenades. A player can spend slots on extra gun attachments or on more perks.

  Killstreaks from earlier games became Scorestreaks. They are earned through points rather than kills, so a player who captures objectives can earn them without chasing eliminations. The wager matches from Black Ops were removed. According to the source, these changes were meant to push play toward objectives, reward teamwork and make the game easier for newcomers.

  Weapons now have their own progression system, which earns attachments. After maxing out a weapon, a player can prestige it, which resets the attachment progress. In return, the weapon can carry a custom clan tag and emblem. Black Ops II also added multi-team matches that host three or more teams, instead of the traditional two factions.

  League Play was the first competitive mode in the series. It matches players of similar skill and follows the rules of Major League Gaming. There is also a 3D display option, which works over an HDMI cable with a 3D television and is switched on in the options menu before entering multiplayer.

  Treyarch released a Season Pass alongside the game. The first major map pack, Revolution, was announced on the 8th of January 2013. It reached Xbox 360 on the 29th of January and PC and PlayStation 3 on the 28th of February. It added four maps, Downhill, Hydro, Mirage and Grind, plus the first downloadable weapon, the Peacekeeper. Three more packs followed, called Uprising, Vengeance and Apocalypse, and the last reached Xbox 360 on the 27th of August 2013. They included remakes of fan favorites, such as Studio, a re-imagining of the Black Ops map Firing Range.

  Personalization packs arrived on the 12th of March 2013 for Xbox 360. They sold small cosmetic changes, such as a national flag in the kill notification box, new weapon skins and extra Create-a-Class slots. None of the map packs reached the Wii U. That version received only Nuketown 2025, on the 7th of August 2014.

  To promote the map packs, Activision made live-action shorts called The Replacers. Peter Stormare played an undercover agent who takes over people's daily lives so they can stay home and play. For the Uprising pack, the comedian J.B. Smoove joined him as a new replacer, and Stormare tried to mentor him. Each of the four packs also shipped with a new Zombies map.

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• 6. Zombies

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  Black Ops II was the third Call of Duty game to feature a Zombies mode, following World at War and Black Ops. It was the first to offer anything beyond the traditional Survival mode. Treyarch also ran Zombies on the multiplayer engine, which allowed a deeper community experience and new features.

  Grief is an eight-player game in which two teams of four compete to survive. Earlier games supported only four-player online co-op. Turned is a second new mode, introduced with the downloadable maps. In it, one player tries to survive against three players controlling zombies, who are trying to turn the human into one of them. Turned takes place in the Diner segment of the TranZit map from the original release.

  As in earlier installments, each Zombies map hides Easter egg side quests, and completing them moves the story forward. Many maps arrived later, through the map packs. Die Rise, in the Revolution pack, is a larger survival map set in two semi-destroyed skyscrapers in Shanghai. One to four players ride elevators between floors.

  The Nuketown Zombies map came separately. On the 12th of December 2012, all Xbox 360 Season Pass holders received it. PC holders followed on the 17th of January, and PlayStation 3 holders on the 19th of January, two days late because of technical issues on the PlayStation Network. It reached PC as an individual download on the 13th of April 2013.

  Uprising brought Mob of the Dead, and critics later singled it out for praise. Vengeance added Buried. The final pack, Apocalypse, delivered Origins, which brought back the old characters Takeo, Nikolai, Richtofen and Dempsey. Origins also features the Avenged Sevenfold song "Shepherd of Fire".

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• 7. Leaks and Reveal

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  On the 8th of November 2011, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said a new Call of Duty game was in development for 2012. Activision confirmed it on the 9th of February 2012, during its fourth-quarter earnings call. The studio brought in outside voices. Oliver North, who was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, consulted on the 1980s portion and helped promote the game. The author and defense expert Peter W. Singer advised on the 2025 storyline.

  The secret leaked almost immediately. In February 2012, a product page for Black Ops 2 appeared on Amazon France and was quickly removed. The site Gameblog claimed Activision demanded it take down its own report, then cut it off from advertising support, review copies and events. Activision denied this. The artist Hugo Beyer listed "Black Ops 2" on his LinkedIn page, then deleted it. Beyer works for Nerve Software, an independent developer that had helped with Black Ops. A trademark filing was spotted in January 2012, and the retailer Fnac listed the game in March 2012 with a November release date.

  The leaks sharpened in April. On the 9th of April, an image on the official Call of Duty website showed the logo and the date of the 28th of April. On the 18th of April, Kotaku received a teaser poster from a retail source, with a title missing but a date of the 2nd of May. On the 27th of April, an IGN reader named Richard sent in pre-order cards from Target. They showed the Black Ops II logo and a release date of the 13th of November 2012.

  Activision redesigned CallofDuty.com on the 23rd of April to announce a reveal on the 1st of May, during the NBA playoffs on TNT. Parts of the site went live hours early, revealing the title, the three platforms and the "21st Century Cold War" setting. The reveal took the form of a YouTube trailer. Afterward, pre-order rates ran three times higher than for the first Black Ops. Critics noted that the trailer resembled the one for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. A second trailer arrived on the 19th of July. The writer David S. Goyer described the story as "better than a Hollywood movie".

  The game reached Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the 13th of November 2012. The Wii U version followed on the 18th of November in North America and the 30th of November in PAL regions, making it the first Call of Duty game on that console. On launch day, nStigate Games also released a companion for the PlayStation Vita, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified.

  Square Enix released a subtitled Japanese version on the 22nd of November 2012. A voice-dubbed version came separately on the 20th of December, with a script translated by Zenigame Nakamoto. Critics faulted the translation for errors. The Wii U port in Japan came only in the dubbed version, since the console was not on sale there in November.

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• 8. Reviews, Records, Lawsuits

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  On Metacritic, Black Ops II drew generally positive reviews for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U, but only mixed or average ones for PC. Anthony Gallegos of IGN called it a good example of how to evolve an annualized franchise. He found the story engaging and the villain so sympathetic that he questioned his own actions. He did fault the artificial intelligence of allies in Strike Force and the campaign's ending.

  Marty Sliva of 1UP gave it a B+. He wrote, "I was surprised with the risks that Treyarch took in the name of delivering a unique and creative experience." Dan Ryckert of Game Informer also criticized Strike Force allies and found Pick 10 "interesting, but ultimately less exciting" than the older system. He praised the branching campaign for getting him talking to other players. The hosts of the Australian show Good Game gave it 8.5 out of 10 and attacked the Angola opening, where the player shoots fleeing soldiers. They said, "we don't want to glorify aimless killings". Frederick Charles Fripp of IT News Africa scored it 9.2 out of 10. At the 16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, it was nominated for Connectivity, Online Gameplay and Visual Engineering.

  The sales numbers beat everything before them. Black Ops II was the fourth year in a row that a Call of Duty game broke the day-one record. Modern Warfare 3 had grossed $400 million in 2011, Black Ops $360 million in 2010 and Modern Warfare 2 $310 million in 2009. Black Ops II reached $1 billion in 15 days, one day faster than Modern Warfare 3. By the 24th of November 2012, it had sold more than 7.5 million copies in the United States. On the 5th of November 2013, IGN confirmed 24.2 million copies sold, the third highest in the series behind Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3.

  In July 2014, Manuel Noriega sued Activision over the use of his likeness, claiming it raised sales and seeking damages for being shown as a "kidnapper, murderer, and enemy of the state". A Los Angeles court dismissed the suit on the 28th of October, ruling that free speech laws protected the depiction. Separately, three of Jonas Savimbi's children sued in a French court, seeking 1 million euros. They said the game portrayed their father as a "barbarian" in a fictitious engagement called Operation Alpha Centauri. The court dismissed that case in 2016.

  Retrospective critics place the game among the best in the series, and some call it the best Call of Duty ever. IGN's staff picked Menendez as one of the series' best villains. Chris Freiberg of Den of Geek praised the freedom and replayability of the campaign. Dan Wenerowicz of Complex called League Play "the best balance of competitive play we've seen in the series", and Pick 10 and Scorestreaks stayed in later games. NME staff called it the last "phenomenal" Call of Duty game before Modern Warfare in 2019. Cade Onder of ComicBook.com called it "one of the best shooters of its time" and noted that fans have asked for a remaster ever since.

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