As has become tradition with the annual Call of Duty releases, this year’s game has apparently leaked ahead of its official announcement. While Activision has already confirmed a new Call of Duty is coming this year, it hasn’t shared any details whatsoever. However, according to a tweet that has since been corroborated by Eurogamer, this year’s game will be called Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War–signaling both a return the popular sub-series and a shift in naming convention for it. With Black Ops and Modern Warfare standing as the two most popular versions of Call of Duty, it could also mean we are going to see them swapping releases each year moving forward.
The Black Ops Cold War name first appeared on Twitter by leaker Okami13, and Eurogamer has since reported it’s heard the same news from its sources. This means that much like 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, developer Treyarch is going back to where Call of Duty: Black Ops started–a stark change from the future-based warfare the Black Ops series traded in with its third and fourth instalments.
The Cold War setting has already been teased in Call of Duty: Warzone, with reported plans for the battle royale to eventually reveal the game in its entirety. Players have found a Cold War spyplane by glitching through walls. The reveal might have tied into the ongoing mystery behind the many vault doors in Warzone currently.
The original Call of Duty: Black Ops was set in the 1960s and featured missions during the Vietnam War. It was a landmark release for Treyarch, with our Call of Duty: Black Ops review scoring it a 9/10. At the time, critic Chris Watters wrote, “Call of Duty: Black Ops lives up to the top-notch pedigree that the series has earned, giving players an awesome new shooter to enjoy just in time for the holidays.”
Last year Call of Duty: Modern Warfare acted as a soft reboot to the 2007 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, using returning characters and recontextualizing them in a story that acts as a pseudo-prequel to the original’s events. Whether this will be the formula Treyarch follows too has yet to be seen.
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