Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Revealed, Trailer, Screenshots and Details Here
Yesterday through Call of Duty: Warzone, the first gameplay trailer was revealed for the forthcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War developed by series veterans Treyarch, with the experienced helping-hand of Raven Software. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be a direct sequel to the original 2010 Black Ops, placing it just before Black Ops 2, so a Black Ops 1.5 if you will.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be set in the 1980’s, and its story will focus on the Cold War, obviously. With Black Ops 4 ditching a proper singleplayer campaign, fans of the series will be happy to know that Black Ops Cold War will have a returning singleplayer campaign, and will have you create your own (speechless) protagonist, and the story will feature multiple choice scenarios in the campaign, which will ultimately impact the game’s ending. It will of course also feature its popular multiplayer mode and judging by the tease at the end of the trailer, there will also be a new Black Ops map coming to battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone, something that fans have longed for, to add to the Verdansk map. And of course, Zombies will also be making a return.
In the story, familiar faces will return, such as the charismatic Frank Woods, who is also being offered as a pre-order bonus Operator in Warzone, as well as a Confrontation Weapons Pack. In the story, Woods will also be joined by Alex Mason and Jason Hudson. In the campaign we are tasked with putting an end to plans of a mysterious figure by the name of Perseus, who plans to destabilise the balance on power of the world and re-write history. We will also be taken to locations such as Vietnam, the Soviet-era of Moscow, East Berlin, Turkey and more.
In terms of platforms, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be a cross-platform title, meaning that PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X players will be able to battle against each other in multiplayer. Progress and data will also carry-over from current-gen to next-gen platforms, for example, PS4 to PS5. If you want to upgrade from the current-gen to next-gen, you’ll have to purchase the “Cross Gen Bundle”, which to be fair, only has an RRP increase of £5/$10 over the standard edition. I know we’d all prefer to get a free upgrade like some other companies are offering, but at least this is only a small amount and Activision also did the same with Call of Duty: Ghosts as we moved into the PS4 and Xbox One era.
If you buy the standard edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on either PS4 or Xbox One, you’ll still be able to play that copy of the game (physical or digital) on the next-gen console, as both PS5 and Xbox Series X will have backwards compatibility features. You just won’t get the next-gen improvements, which Activision claims will run at 120fps at 4K, which would be very impressive on console if true. Progress will also carry over, whether it’s via backwards compatibility or via the new-gen upgrade.
Though if you purchased the next-gen standard edition, Activision have joined 2K in the next-gen price hike at £64.99/$69.99. Yes I know AAA games have held the same RRP for years, but the videogames industry is making more money than ever before, in-fact it’s currently the most lucrative entertainment industry, especially in the world of heavy monetisation. These AAA industries do not need the money to survive inflation, they just want to make all of the money by capitalising on the early next-gen market.
These AAA publishers might surprise us and not heavily monetise their games with micro-transactions, battle passes and season passes. But who are we kidding? We know they’ll throw the monetisation on top of the RRP increase to make even more money in a time when people are struggling then ever before.
Black Ops Cold War will also have a multiplayer beta, which will come to PS4 first, with other platforms at a later date. However, according to Gfinity.com, they believe that the beta will only be available to those that pre-order the game digitally, which would be a shame if true. While we don’t have a release date for the beta, I fully expect all will be revealed with the worldwide multiplayer reveal on September 9th.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will release for PC (via Battle.net), PS4 and Xbox One on November 13th. It will then release for PS5 and Xbox Series X around Christmas time, dependant on when the next-gen consoles release.