Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War | First Person Shooter | Activision | Raven | Rack Nerve

 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a first-person shooter video game released by Activision in 2020. It was developed by Treyarch and Raven Software. On November 13, 2020, it was released globally for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It is the sixth instalment in the Black Ops franchise and the seventeenth overall in the Call of Duty franchise. Since 2011's Modern Warfare 3, this is the second Call of Duty game to be co-developed by two studios.

The campaign of Black Ops Cold War is set in the early 1980s during the Cold War, and it takes place chronologically between Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) and Black Ops II (2012). It revolves around the hunt for purported Soviet spy Perseus, whose declared goal is to destabilise the US and tip the power balance toward the Soviet Union. The player controls "Bell" in the campaign, who is recruited by CIA officer Russell Adler into a multinational task team designed to find Perseus. Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson make cameo appearances in the campaign, with Mason serving as a playable character in several objectives. The multiplayer mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 includes new game modes as well as new map dynamics and components, carrying over several design choices from the previous game. It includes a battle pass as well as free maps and weapons released every season, similar to Modern Warfare. Cold War also includes campaign and multiplayer narrative tie-ins to Modern Warfare, building a connected universe spanning several Call of Duty sub-series.

The game was not intended to be a part of the Black Ops subseries when Raven and Sledgehammer Games created it. However, due to differences between the two teams, Activision put Treyarch in charge of the game's production in 2019, with Raven serving as a co-developer. The game's marketing began in August 2020, and took a variety of formats, including slide projectors for specific content creators, puzzles for fans to solve online, and a website presenting historical Cold War events. In October 2020, a public multiplayer beta for the game went live. Critics praised the campaign, multiplayer, and zombies, while criticising the game's technical faults and lack of creativity, and Black Ops Cold War became the best-selling game of 2020 in the United States.

Gameplay

Campaign

The Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War campaign allows players to take on the role of a custom character, codenamed "Bell," and customise their intelligence agency, skin tone, nationality, and gender, as well as various personality traits that provide in-game perks. For the first time since Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the campaign has multiple endings that are determined by player choices throughout the game. 

Multiplayer

The multiplayer mode includes new and returning game modes, as well as maps that support both the traditional 6v6 format and larger 12v12 combat. The game also added a new game mode called "Fireteam," which can accommodate up to 40 players.  The Create-a-Class system from Modern Warfare returns, with two major differences: field upgrades are implemented as part of class loadouts, and each class has a wildcard choice from four options: Gunfighter (allows up to 8 primary weapon attachments), Perk Greed (allows 2 perks from each perk type for a total of 6 usable perks), Danger Close (double grenade equipment), or Lawbreaker (allows mixing and matching any weapon/perk Cold War, like Modern Warfare, supports cross-platform play and progression.  After an update, the multiplayer progression system has been integrated with Call of Duty: Warzone, allowing for a unified level system across Cold War, Warzone, and Modern Warfare. Furthermore, Cold War Operator characters and weapons are added to Warzone to be used alongside Modern Warfare Operators and weapons, though the multiplayer modes remain distinct and do not share Operators and weapons.

Zombies

Zombies includes a new storyline called "Dark Aether," which expands on the original Aether story, which ended in Black Ops 4, while also remaining true to the campaign's main narrative. Players can play as Operator characters from Multiplayer instead of predefined characters, as part of a CIA response team codenamed "Requiem." Progression from Multiplayer is shared with Zombies, as players can start a Zombies match with any weapon, alongside Gunsmith, scorestreaks, and field upgrades, as well as returning mechanics like wallbuys, the Mystery Box, Pack-a-Punch, and past fan-favorite Perks. For the first time in Zombies, players can choose to "exfil" the map, which places them in a difficult wave with increased enemy spawn that they must survive before escaping. Collectible intel is also scattered throughout the playable maps, allowing players to track and unravel the main story as they progress. [7] The game includes a skill upgrade system that allows players to improve weapons, perks, ammo mods, and field upgrades with Aetherium Crystals, a currency obtained by reaching round milestones. Onslaught is a new game mode available exclusively to PlayStation players until November 1, 2021. Up to two players defend areas grounded off by the Dark Aether orb, which must be powered by zombie kills in this mode, which is played within Multiplayer maps. Sufficient kills will cause the orb to move to new locations, forcing players to move or die outside of the orb's protection zone. [8] The Season Two update adds "Outbreak," a large-scale mode in which players fight off zombie hordes and complete objectives in an open-world area made up of locations from the larger Multiplayer modes.

Plot

Characters and settings

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is set in the early 1980s, during the Cold War. Russell Adler (Bruce Thomas) is a Green Beret turned CIA SAD/SOG operative on a mission to stop an international espionage threat named Perseus (William Salyers) in 1981. The story is based on true events, and the campaign takes place in places like East Berlin, Vietnam, Turkey, and the Soviet KGB headquarters. Adler is aided by returning Black Ops characters Alex Mason (Chris Payne Gilbert), Frank Woods (Damon Victor Allen), and Jason Hudson (Piotr Michael), as well as fellow MACV-SOG operative Lawrence Sims (Reggie Watkins), Mossad fixer Eleazar "Lazar" Azoulay (Damon Dayoub), and MI6 officer Helen Park (Lily Cowles), as well as KGB officer and double agent Dimitri Belikov (Mark Ivanir). For the majority of the campaign, players take on the role of "Bell," a mysterious operative who assists Adler and his team in finding Perseus; Mason and Belikov are also playable in certain segments. Iranian terrorists Arash Kadivar (Navid Negahban) and Qasim Javadi (Farshad Farahat), Russian mafia boss Anton Volkov (Rafael Petardi), rogue KGB officer Major Vadim Rudnik, and ex-CIA agent Robert Aldrich make up Perseus' inner circle. Imran Zakhaev (Dan Donohue), the father of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare antagonist Victor Zakhaev, also appears in the campaign.

The seasonal story of the multiplayer mode takes place between late 1983 and 1984, and follows Adler on a new mission to investigate the resurgence of Perseus and his agents, led by Vikhor "Stitch" Kuzmin (Chris Parson), who seeks vengeance on Adler for personal reasons. Ex-NIS operative Freya "Wraith" Helvig (Michelle Viscusi), ex-MI6 agent Roman "Knight" Gray (Mark Sheppard), mercenary Owethu "Jackal" Mabuza (Gabe Kunda), ex-yakuza Kaori "Kitsune" Tanaka (Erika Ishii), and ex-Spanish Army demolitions expert Benito "Fuze" Ortega are among Stitch's followers and fellow Several NATO allies appear throughout the seasons to aid Adler and the CIA in their fight against Stitch's forces, including DGSE operative Zeyna Ossou (Mara Junot), SRT Marine Wyatt "Bulldozer" Jones (Jeff Schine), and Delta Force sniper Terrell  Wolf (Zeke Alton), guerrilla fighter Karla Rivas (Krizia Bajos), Unit 777 officer Jabari Salah, and CIA SAD operative Colton "Stryker" Greenfield (Christian Rummel). Captain Carver Butcher (Ron Bottitta), the founder of Task Force Vanguard and the protagonist of Call of Duty: Vanguard's multiplayer seasonal story, appears in the final Cold War multiplayer season.

Synopsis

Campaign

Russell Adler, Alex Mason, and Frank Woods are CIA SAD/SOG operatives sent to target Qasim Javadi and Arash Kadivar for their roles in the Iran hostage crisis in January 1981. The team follows Arash to Turkey using information gleaned from questioning Qasim. Before being executed, Arash boasts that Perseus was the one who organised the hostage crisis. After being briefed on Perseus' threat by Jason Hudson and Adler, US President Ronald Reagan authorises a black operation team to neutralise him.

Adler's team includes CIA operative Lawrence Sims, American-born Mossad operative Eleazar "Lazar" Azoulay, and MI6 intelligence officer Helen Park, with tactical support from Mason and Woods. The team's final member is an agent known only by the codename "Bell," who served in MACV-SOG with Adler and Sims during the Vietnam War. The team begins by asking Bell to recall the 1968 operation Operation Fracture Jaw, where Adler believes he, Bell, and Sims first encountered Perseus. Following that, the team travels to East Berlin to capture/kill Anton Volkov, a Russian mafia boss with ties to Perseus.

Following Bell and Woods' infiltration into a secret Spetsnaz training facility, the team discovers that Perseus had infiltrated Operation Greenlight, a top-secret American programme that secretly planted neutron bombs in every major European city to prevent the Soviets from using them in the event of an invasion. Mason and Woods are sent to Mount Yamantau in the Ural Mountains to infiltrate Nikita Dragovich's destroyed base and retrieve his list of sleeper agents. [c] However, the team discovers that Perseus has deleted the data from the Yamantau base's mainframe, leaving them with no choice but to infiltrate KGB Headquarters in order to retrieve the list. They manage to get Adler and Bell inside the Lubyanka Building with the help of one of their KGB double agent allies, Dimitri Belikov. The team discovers that an Operation Greenlight scientist is a sleeper agent who has fled to Cuba. The team launches a raid in the hopes of capturing Perseus there. They learn that Perseus has stolen the detonation codes for every Operation Greenlight bomb, allowing him to devastate Europe while blaming the US. The team is attacked and both Lazar and Park are injured, giving Bell only enough time to save one of them.

Adler continues to press them after rescuing Bell by reviving their memories of Vietnam. Bell's true identity is revealed at this point as a Perseus agent who was shot by Arash in Turkey out of jealousy. Adler discovered Bell and brainwashed him into believing they were his comrades using Project MKUltra. Adler interrogates them about the location of Perseus' headquarters now that Bell's memory has been restored. Bell then has the option of remaining loyal to Perseus and lying to Adler, or betraying Perseus and revealing his location.

• In the non-canonical endings in which Bell chooses to remain loyal to Perseus, they lie by telling Adler to go to the Duga radar array, where the team will be too far away to prevent Perseus from activating the nukes. If Bell has made prior contact with the Soviet Army, they will lure the team into a trap and kill them with the assistance of Perseus and the Soviet Union Army before activating the nukes. If Bell refuses to kill the team, Adler executes him, but the nukes still go off. The explosions have devastated Europe, and public opinion in the United States has plummeted. In order to protect Adler and his team, the CIA is forced to erase their existence.

• In the canonical ending, Bell and the team attack Perseus' headquarters in the Solovetsky Islands and destroy the transmitters required to send the detonation signal. Perseus goes into hiding after Operation Greenlight fails, despite Adler's promise to continue pursuing him and dismantling his spy network. Later, Adler takes Bell out for a private conversation, assuring them that their decision to oppose Perseus was made of their own free will and that they are a hero. Adler then admits that Bell must be eliminated as a loose end, and the scene fades to black as gunshots are heard.

Development

On May 18, 2019, Kotaku reported that the game was in turmoil due to growing tensions between developers Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software. According to two sources, the game was a "mess." [9] Activision responded by appointing Treyarch to lead development alongside Raven. This resulted in a shorter development period than previous entries, as well as different responsibilities for the two studios, with Raven Software leading the development of the single-player campaign. [10]

Activision confirmed in their Q2 earnings call on August 4, 2020 that a new Call of Duty title was planned for release in 2020 and that Treyarch and Raven were developing the game.

[11] It is the first Call of Duty game co-developed by two studios since Modern Warfare 3, Raven Software is also the main developer for the first time, having previously assisted on multiplayer and extra features in previous games. [11] During the Q2 earnings call, Activision president Rob Kostich confirmed that Black Ops Cold War will be "tightly connected" to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and Call of Duty: Warzone. [12]

On the concept of multiple endings, Raven Software's Dan Vondrak stated, "We had several endings in mind when we first started writing the story. That was extremely beneficial... But we knew right away that was what we wanted to do. I loved the idea of paying homage to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 by having these [multiple endings]." [13]

Marketing

Call of Duty game announcements and marketing have traditionally occurred in April or May, prior to the game's fall release. [14] [15] Activision, on the other hand, began teasing the game with an alternate reality game (ARG) in August 2020. Several YouTubers well-known in the Call of Duty community received crates. They were greeted by a slide projector, 10 different slides per crate, and a manifest once they were authorised to open on August 10, 2020. [16] After the initial cyphers were solved, the game was marketed on August 14, 2020, by enticing fans to solve cyphers and puzzles on pawntakespawn.com. [17] Throughout the Cold War, fans could watch VHS tapes containing news segments and footage from the corresponding year(s). [18] Throughout the VHS cassettes, At random intervals, two-digit nixie tube combinations appeared, which were required to solve cyphers, as well as one set of coordinates per VHS tape, which led to a location in Warzone. [19]

The teaser trailer was released on August 19, 2020, after all cyphers were deciphered.

[20] The teaser trailer includes excerpts from a 1984 interview with conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin with former Soviet PGU KGB informant and defector Yuri Bezmenov discussing active measures. [21] The global reveal was scheduled for August 26, 2020. [22] [23]

Another alternate reality game (ARG) on pawntakespawn.com, teasing the Zombies mode, began on September 22, 2020, when various Call of Duty YouTubers such as NoahJ456 and MrDalekJD were sent crates with 1980s technology and cyphers to solve.

Zombies was officially revealed on September 30. [26]

All Black Ops Cold War edition pre-orders include early access to the open-access beta,[f] a weapons pack, and a Frank Woods operator pack in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone. The Ultimate Edition includes three additional cosmetic skin packs, as well as access to the current Season's Battle Pass for Black Ops Cold War (dependent on time of purchase). The Cross-gen Bundle and Ultimate Edition provide console players with two versions of the game, one for the current console generation (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) and one for the next generation (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S or Xbox Series X) when they become available. [27]