Call of Duty is one of the few annual constants in the gaming market, every year we find ourselves with yet another iteration that constantly tries to change the game elements without trying to completely upset the spirit of the saga.
This year however, Treyarch will have to deal with a certain Battle Royale - Call of Duty: Warzone - a game that is receiving more attention although its free-to-play nature and that could compromise the flow of new users to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War with which we had the pleasure of spending several days of play in the beta on PlayStation 4 and PC.
Treyarch's ransom?
The previous title
All of this represented a great momentum for the next chapter, namely Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, which to date is the best-selling chapter of the saga ever and it is natural to wonder how it will be possible to equal or even surpass such success.
The developers were clear right away, this chapter will have three main modes: Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombie. Each mode has had the opportunity to show itself in different trailers and dedicated events and although we have not yet had the opportunity to try live portions of the single player campaign or try our hand at resisting the waves of the undead on the zombie mode we were given the opportunity to try the multiplayer sector.
What convinced us right away was the feeling of the controls that proved to be extremely responsive and fast while maintaining a certain slowness in the movements so as not to make the pace of the game excessively frenetic. Even the TTM (time-to-kill) it seemed right, allowing for interesting firefights that can stand out no longer the simple reaction time but the lucidity and readiness of the player in knowing how to adapt to the situation and try to emerge victorious from the gunfight.
In this beta it was possible to gain experience and progress up to level 40 but, we don't know if this Call of Duty chapter will keep the prestige system or marry the seasonal system introduced with Modern Warfare. Leveling up allowed us to progressively unlock: weapons, kill streak, additional class slots and wildcards. During the beta the development team promptly worked on the tuning of the weapons based on player feedback as well as solving some bugs but it is good to underline how being a beta everything can be upset waiting for the final version.
In addition to the more traditional modes, a new feature of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is the "Dirty Bomb" mode, in this mode very similar to a mini Battle Royale we will have to find and collect pieces of uranium and deposit them in special devices to be then denote once filled to the maximum. By playing this mode there are several similarities with Warzone, in fact, there is the armor system that will provide the player with protection with up to 3 plates, in addition, there is also the self-resuscitation system, also already known on Activision's Battle Royale.
Overall, "Dirty Bomb" it is a mode that deserves to be played, especially if you are looking for a more elaborate mode that is partly close to the great battles of Battlefield. The inspiration for EA's shooter is even more noticeable with the presence of the “Combo Weapons” mode, a 12vs12 mode where the maps increase their size by introducing vehicles and a higher number of flags to capture. Shooting from great distances in a Call of Duty can still be bizarre but after the release of Call of Duty: Warzone it is clear that there is a willingness on the part of Activision to try to twist (albeit slightly) the cards on the table.
Technical sector
One big news featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War that definitely pleased console gamers was the ability to change the field of view on any platform (no longer only on PC) up to a maximum of 120 °, all without compromising the frame-rate not even in the version for PlayStation 4. We got to try the title on both PC and PlayStation 4 and we were pleasantly surprised by Treyarch's excellent work on the technical sector. Each map is well defined and with an excellent color palette that allows a clear distinction between scenario and enemy. On PlayStation 4, the frame-rate remains anchored at 60 frames per second with some small drops in situations that have several explosions at the same time, while on PC the system requirements of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are decidedly lower than in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare allowing you to run the title on a greater number of gaming machines.
We would like to specify how for the first time, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will have not only Ray Tracing on PC but also DLSS 2.0, feature available exclusively with Nvidia's RTX video cards and which allow a significant gain in FPS without losing visual quality. Unfortunately, this feature was not available in the beta and for this we will have to wait for the release of the title to try this feature live.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War proves to be a solid and fun chapter in Activision's historic first-person shooter saga. Between campaign, multiplayer and zombies we are pretty sure that there will be activities to do, although, the shadow of Call of Duty: Warzone is getting bigger and could risk completely obscuring every chapter to come. In general, the shooting seemed to us one of the most convincing of the last chapters and the maps were designed to make every firefight fun and adrenaline. While waiting for the review, we remind you to stay on our pages so as not to miss any updates on the new chapter of Call of Duty that we will also try on next-gen!
► Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a Shooter type game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the video game was released on 13/11/2020
