Tons of news about Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is over at Activision's blog, but we've collected some of the highlights below:

Release Date:

  • November 13th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC
  • Holiday 2020 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, “depending on when consoles are available to consumers.”

Pre-order:

Cross-Platform and Cross-Generational Play Supported:

  • This means that PlayStation players will be able to play with Xbox and PC players, and vice versa
  • It also means that PS4 players will be able to play with PS5 players, with Xbox One gamers being able to play with Xbox Series X owners, and all the other combinations you can think of
  • "Plus, when you’re ready to move to PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X you can take your profile, progression and stats with you."
  • With next-gen consoles comes increased performance; Venture Beat reports "4K resolution and refresh rates at 120hz" along with haptic feedback controllers in the new systems

Story:

In pure Black Ops style, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War fuses elements of 1980s pop culture through a mind-bending conspiracy story, where deception and subterfuge are the norm in the gripping single-player Campaign. In this sequel to the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, players encounter historic figures and learn hard truths as they battle around the globe through iconic locales like East Berlin, Turkey, Vietnam, Soviet-era Moscow, and more. As elite operatives, players attempt to stop a plot decades in the making as they follow the trail of a shadowy figure named Perseus, who is on a mission to destabilize the global balance of power and change the course of history.

  • From David Goyer and lead writer Murray Craft, this story is a direct sequel to the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, picking up 13 years later
  • You'll be part of a team tasked with tracking down the Soviet spy, Perseus, who's been linked with stealing nuclear secrets from the U.S.
  • Expect to engage in all sorts of illicit and illegal activity, but don't trust everything you see (especially in those Vietnam flashbacks, which will be a real trip)
call-of-duty-cold-war-adler
Image via Activision

Character Creation:

  • Legendary operatives Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson return, but players will get rather contemporary character creation options this time around.
  • Other new characters include Russell Adler (Bruce Thomas), Helen Park (Lily Cowles), Lazar Azoulay (Damon Dayoub) and Lawerence Sims (Reggie Watkins), with the game’s villain as played by Navid Negahban (Homeland)
  • As GamesRadar reports, the player's fully customizable character, ‘Bell’, can be created and customized by revealing or redacting entries on a classified document
  • Dan Vondrak, Raven’s senior creative director, said: “Players will be able to create their own character. They can name them, pick a skin tone, pick a gender, make them male or female or even leave that classified and the game will treat that as gender-neutral, changing VO to ‘He’, ‘She’, ‘They’, ‘Him’, ‘Her’, ‘Them’."

Endings:

  • The single-player campaign comes with multiple endings and non-linear missions
  • Decisions left up to the player include things like dialogue trees (to try out different responses), optional side-missions, variety in the way you complete things like undercover missions, and even missions that change based on decisions you've made so far
  • The key takeaway here is that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War wants gamers to give the single-player campaign a few runs through to see all that it has to offer

Multiplayer:

  • Massive calendar of free, post-launch content, including Multiplayer maps and modes.
  • Battle Pass system to unlock post-launch content with unified progression across both Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone. Unlock items like base weapons, customization items and more simply by playing the game.
  • all-new Multiplayer experience in Black Ops Cold War and the next, new chapter of Call of Duty Zombies