Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Another year, another CoD. This year, Treyarch and an additional five development studios are proud to bring us the runoff titled Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. BOCW is the sixth game in the Black Ops saga, set in the 1980s between the events of Black Ops and Black Ops II. This game is boasting four modes: Campaign, Multiplayer, Zombies, and returning from Modern Warfare (2019) is Warzone. As of last weekend, the beta has ended and I will be getting into the multiplayer aspect later on in this review. Since the full game isn’t out yet, let’s talk about what’s known so far about BOCW.
Cold War starts us off in the 1980s during the Reagan administration as familiar characters Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson are tasked with finding the real life Soviet spy who leaked classified and sensitive nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union under the codename, “Perseus.” Your character, Codename Bell, joins them under the guidance of Russell Adler, a CIA officer in charge of the black operations. Bell can be customized by race, gender (including a “classified” gender), ethnicities, and a personality trait that will provide in-game perks. Much like Black Ops II, this campaign has a branching story with player choice affecting the ending. While multiplayer only had a limited number of gamemodes to play, it was still an entertaining experience.
The mulitplayer is a combination of Black Ops II’s and Modern Warfare (2019)’s gameplay and functionality. Multiplayer plays and feels like BO2, while having the map largeness and weapon attachment diversity of MW. For the final day of the beta, all weapons that you unlocked were at max level, meaning you had all the attachments available and could deck out your guns with up to five attachments (your primary with eight if you had the right Wildcard equipped). Aside from the usual Team Deathmatch or Domination, there were three large team gamemodes: 6v6 Moshpit, a 12v12 Combined Arms (large-scale domination with vehicles), and a brand new 40 player mode called Fire-Team: Dirty Bomb. In this mode, ten teams of four duke it out in a large scale map depositing uranium into nukes found among the map. A compilation video of gameplay I obtained should be available, however, I did not record the bigger gamemodes.
The Zombies storyline continues where it left off from Black Ops IIII. After the events of Tag Der Toten, the multiverse comes to an end, and the Primis, Ultimis, and Victis crews, as well as all locations, the Apothicons, and Element 115 are erased from the world. Our new story, called “Dark Aether,” takes place in 1984, when an adult Samantha Maxis contacts Grigori Weaver, an old CIA operative and American spy, about Die Maschine, an old Nazi experimental facility that the Soviets have uncovered. The zombies mode comes with four maps: Die Maschine, Nacht Der Untoten, an unnamed Vietnam map, and Dead Ops Arcade 3. A number of changes are coming to zombies including a multiplayer-esque class system, no perk limits, multiplayer operators instead of full fledged characters, and an exfil system. A new zombies experience has been added to the mix: Zombies Onslaught. Onslaught is a smaller gamemode that will bring zombies gameplay to the multiplayer maps, set with their own storylines. However, much like Spec Ops Survival in last year’s Call of Duty, PlayStation players will have exclusive access to this mode until November 1, 2021.
Warzone, Call of Duty’s battle royale, makes a return from Modern Warfare (2019). Warzone will not only be cross-platform like the rest of the game, but it will be cross-progression. This essentially means that whatever you unlock in Black Ops Cold War, you unlock in the other, and vice-versa. That’s all for now, but join me again when the full game drops November 13, 2020.
