Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a continuation of the popular series of first-person shooter adventures set during the "Cold War." Treyarch realized how important a single-player campaign is for the franchise, so they created an epic action game about super spies, mixing the usual shooting gallery with dialogues and stealth. The game also offers its own set of multiplayer modes and a zombie mode. There is integration with Warzone.

As expected from a spy blockbuster, the campaign features non-linear stealth. Players are placed in a micro-sandbox where they can, like Sam Fisher, stealthily explore every corner, avoid patrols, and hide dead enemies in trash bins and lockers. The stealth is not demanding — if you lose your disguise, you can complete the mission the old-fashioned way, making noise with everything that shoots and explodes.

Since Cold War belongs to the Black Ops series, it is more arcade-like than in Modern Warfare. The shooting mechanics are based on hit scanning. It takes more time to kill (TtK around 400 ms), and holding the weapon is more challenging. There is a delay before entering aiming mode. Players also have more health. Movement has become easier, but there is a slight delay with any action, simulating weight.

In multiplayer, there are no "kill streaks." They have been replaced with a "score streak" system, awarded for each useful action and not lost upon death. Even complete newcomers can call in UAVs or artillery strikes towards the end of a match. However, spamming abilities is not possible; after each use, it is blocked until the timer resets, limiting even experienced players.

The events of Cold War take place in the 1980s, which is directly reflected in the appearance of characters and the design of their clothing, the visual style of buildings, vehicles, weapons, and other content. For example, the streets of night cities are illuminated by neon lights instead of simple lamps.

The locations for single-player and multiplayer games are inspired by popular "spy" settings, such as East Berlin, Istanbul, Miami, and Moscow. The era of the Vietnam War is also represented with a couple of maps. Following the design, the single-player maps are well-crafted and quite extensive, especially the mission at Lubyanka .

The multiplayer is less fortunate — in the structure of the maps, there are "eight" or "three guts," and the attention to detail is far from ideal. The most intense battles between players take place at one or two points of intersection. At the same time, all routes are well-covered by snipers, and players of other classes often struggle to find places for return fire.

Due to color correction, distinguishing opponents at a distance is not easy; their camouflage blends with the environment. The size of the maps is poorly adapted for different multiplayer modes and the number of participants. All of this has led to players preferring to sit in ambush and play defensively rather than launching crazy assaults.

The Cold War campaign reflects the confrontation between the USA and the USSR on the invisible front of espionage and intelligence. According to the plot, CIA agent Russell Adler, along with the protagonist and a team of operatives (including familiar faces like Woods, Mason, and Hudson), must stop the Soviet ultra-patriot "Perseus," who intends to carry out sabotage in Europe and change the course of the Cold War in favor of the Soviets.

On this path, players will be misled by propaganda, brainwashed, and set up at the last moment. The story is presented in a close-up manner, from the first-person perspective, and the player knows no more than their character. Scattered throughout the levels are collectibles, which serve as clues left by suspect NPCs in a couple of side missions.

The presentation emphasizes the espionage aspect of Cold War. There is less continuous action with explosions and grinding through hordes of enemies, and more narrative scenes with character dialogues. To enhance immersion, a simple dialogue system has been added to the game. Players need to follow the thread of conversation to provide the appropriate response.

Since the player is part of a CIA team, a base for operation planning has been included in the game. There are also other activities: viewing evidence, talking to other characters, scripted interactions between them, and video games. As action is regularly interspersed with dialogue, cutscenes, and conversations, the story as a whole and the characters in particular will stay in memory for a long time.

Each mission contains elements of varied gameplay due to completing certain actions or choosing responses in dialogues. However, the Cold War narrative is linear, and the storyline will not change based on the decisions made during missions (they will be mentioned in the epilogue). The campaign can be completed in 5 hours, but players have enough motivation to do it twiceto discover all variations.

In addition to the standard set of modes for any Black Ops game, including "Team Deathmatch," "Deathmatch," "Search and Destroy," "Domination," and "Kill Confirmed" (each for 10-12 players), the developers have added a number of new ones:

There are no preset classes in the game. In the spirit of Modern Warfare (2019), each player builds their own class, equipping 3 perks, 2 weapons, lethal/tactical equipment, or field upgrades, with "wildcards."

The combination of perks and equipment/upgrades determines the play style and character class. Wildcards provide a significant advantage in a specific area. Equipment can be changed at any moment.

At launch, Cold War offered one zombie episode on the map Die Maschine, as a tribute to the very first zombie map. This mode also features a storyline campaign. In the early 80s, agents of the CIA special group "Requiem" enter a World War II bunker to uncover old secrets that could shake the world order.

At the same time, a competing squad of Soviet special forces "Omega" arrives, whose specialists are eager to study the Germans' secrets to use them for the benefit of the USSR.

Gameplay-wise, Cold War offers classic Black Ops co-op: 2-4 players must survive for an extended period, grinding through hordes of the undead, conveniently divided into rounds (waves). The higher the round, the more zombies there are, the stronger they become, and more dangerous bosses are added to the wave.

The mode offers several arenas, both familiar and new. The design features more open spaces and bonus zones, with randomly generated dungeons. Instead of unique characters, there are operators from multiplayer and a unified progression and leveling system.

Only in zombies mode, in addition to the "Upgrader" (which still enhances any weapon's stats), all "guns" have their own rarity level. The rarer the weapon, the higher its damage and the number of attachments it can have. Thus, all types of weapons remain effective even in later rounds.

After killing the required number of zombies, "field upgrades" are unlocked — powerful abilities for the entire squad, such as strong healing or enhanced camouflage.