Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Review for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the video game was released on 13/11/2020

After the success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the Activision first-person shooter saga returns again with the fifth chapter of the Black Ops saga which, after the misstep made with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, decides to propose to the public un chapter with campaign, multiplayer and zombie mode.



Will Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War be able to emerge among the various free-to-play multiplayer proposals currently available on the market? Find out in our review!

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Black Ops in the Cold War

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is (as can be understood from the title) set in the period of the Cold War. Historically speaking, a historical period full of events and technological advances, a different war that allowed a Treyarch to create an interesting narrative sector and diametrically opposed to the direct conflicts of the previous Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

As already experienced in previous chapters, the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War campaign will not be completely linear, in fact you will be able to make choices that will affect the rest of the plot and situations in future missions. Another detail of the single player experience is creating your own character. In fact, you will be asked to give your name and surname to an agent (also here you can choose the origins and the agency you belong to) who will have a fixed code name for everyone: Bell.


Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Obviously the well-known faces of the historic Call of Duty: Black Ops return including Mason, Woods, Hudson but also new characters including the mysterious Adler who will recruit us to chase the mysterious agent Perseus, a person capable of being able to trigger the third world war.


Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

The missions of the campaign are well diversified and can be carried out with different approaches, getting close to the sandbox genre. Furthermore you will have a real HQ where you can analyze the various clues collected during the missions and only through the evidence collected will you be able to decipher some objects, such as a floppy disk containing the information of an entire network of sleeping agents, allowing the player to further immerse themselves in the spy scenarios of the Cold War.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Overall it took us about 6 hours to finish the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War campaign staying in line with the duration of the other single player experiences in the saga but, slightly less cinematic than what was proposed in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The lack of smooth movie-to-game transitions that were present in the last chapter affected the narrative style of the campaign that, in Cold War, are missing and make the title in some respects a step back on the technical sector, although, the creative direction of the missions excels, surpassing the offer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

The funniest multiplayer ever?


Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer proposes some changes from its predecessors. Skilled Operators are removed (from Black Ops 3 and Black Ops 4) while keeping simple character skins from the Call of Duty campaign or universe (similar to Modern Warfare). No jumping or flying, here we are fighting in the Cold War and this allowed the Treyarch team to balance movement, slide and gunplay approaching the style of the progenitor of the Black Ops saga.


Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

As per tradition, there are the classic modes present in every Call of Duty (Team Deathmatch, Dominion, etc.) but also some welcome news including: VIP Escort, Dirty Bomb and Combined Weapons.

We found VIP Escort mode to be the perfect competitive experienceSince at each match a member of your team will be the VIP who will be escorted to the extraction point, this will require the maximum cooperation from your team in order to complete the objective or eliminate the entire opposing team. Dirty Bomb instead offers a compact version of Call of Duty: Warzone, from which it shares some graphic assets. A mode certainly different from the classic canons of the saga that outlines Treyarch's desire to also take care of long-range combats on vast maps similar to what DICE has been doing for years with Battlefield.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer offer it is certainly among the richest of the last few chapters and in addition to the many modes present at launch, Treyarch already makes known a road map full of content coming in the coming months including, the long-awaited unification with Warzone. Call of Duty: Warzone is the long-term plan for Activision and it's good for them to keep it curated and active as much as possible, so the various chapters will be tied hand in glove with the free battle royale through the synchronization of levels and prestige ( returning with Cold War). The weapons you level in this chapter will be the same ones you can use on Warzone and vice versa, thus allowing a strong interest from players in three games: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, a loyalty operation never seen before and that only in the coming months will we find out if it will pay off Activision.

Undead returning



To close the package of modes present in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War thinks about it the Zombie mode. Much loved by historical fans of the Treyarch saga that has abruptly changed style in its predecessor, receiving not a few criticisms. So this year we find a Zombie mode that is much closer to the classic experience of the previous chapters albeit with some news that does not spoil the game action but makes it even more frenetic.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review
If in previous titles you started with a simple pistol, here you will already start with your own classes (the same ones we will use in multiplayer) and with their own operators. At first glance it seems that this time Zombie has become a fragmentation of the multiplayer, but, after the first few minutes you realize you are in a much more elaborate way. The classic drinks are back, now no longer bottled but in the form of cans that can be enhanced with crystals that we will get by playing, the classic mysterious chest is back with which to bet your chances of finding the much sought-after Ray-Gun or the enhanced weapons divided by colors (similar to Fortnite) to indicate their rarity.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review
In addition to a series of missions that will guide the player until the construction of the "Puck-a-Punch", the tool to upgrade weapons, the first Zombie map "Die Machine" enjoys the classic easter egg to be solved with wit and cooperation with your friends and then decide to escape with a helicopter every 10 rounds. Be careful though, once the extraction procedure has started if you fail to arrive in time, the game will end with your defeatSo, before you run away, get ready for the worst.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Zombie mode will also allow you to level up, unlock accessories for your weapons and complete the various challenges, making this third component of the title more attractive to those who have rarely tried it but, we can guarantee that playing this mode in a group will offer you several hours of fun without having to give up gaining experience in the general game.

Technical Department

The new chapter of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War does not take advantage of the new engine used for the recent Modern Warfare, but, a modified version of the engine used for Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Despite this apparent technical limitation, the title is extremely enjoyable, although, especially during the single-player campaign we noticed how some faces, Adler in the first place, does not reflect the version made in CGI, differently from what happened with Modern Warfare which it offered the same quality, guaranteeing that cinematic impact we were talking about a moment ago.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review
Yet, old engine or not, the title supports Ray Tracing with DLSS 2.0 (DLSS is currently not available on Modern Warfare / Warzone yet) both on PC and on new generation consoles such as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / Xbox Series S. We have had the opportunity to try the PlayStation 4 and PC version and we will update you soon also with the PlayStation 5 version, but, for the versions we tested the frame-rate remained stable and it's interesting to outline how Cold War is too the first chapter of the saga to introduce the FOV regulator (field of view) also on Console.

We found the color palette spot on, especially when you decide to play on multiplayer where each map is well colored and with high contrasts that make the game situation more readable than the duller colors of Modern Warfare / Warzone.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War - Review

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was an opportunity for Treyarch to demonstrate how the classic Black Ops can still work in 2020, creating an impactful single-player campaign, perhaps among the most beautiful of the entire brand, trying to innovate and experiment with gameplay choices that we want to see even more in subsequent chapters. The rest of the offer is full of modes and content for all players who are looking for a fun, simple and enjoyable multiplayer title even for a quick game. With a road map of content coming in the coming months and integration with Warzone, Black Ops Cold War proves to be a solid chapter in the saga and an opportunity for redemption for Treyarch.

► 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

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