Black Ops Cold War's Campaign Works Best When It Stops Being Call of Duty
Over the course of the last five years, first-person shooter campaigns have come a long way with games like DOOM, Titanfall 2, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, and even Borderlands 3 each offering unique ways to experience the genre. What was once relegated to 5-6 hour experiences tacked on to robust multiplayer games like Call of Duty or Battlefield to help market the new title and sell more copies is now something that players look for as single-player games thrive amongst a landscape of multiplayer games, Battle Passes, and seasonalized content releases.
The Call of Duty formula has remained relatively consistent throughout its decade-long dominance with only a few titles including the original Black Ops, Infinite Warfare, and Modern Warfare trying to break the mold in the single-player department. Players are looking for a Hollywood blockbuster experience with high-budget setpieces and that's what they get. When it comes to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the new game features a few missions that step outside of the box. In those moments when Black Ops Cold War stops being Call of Duty, campaign developer Raven Software offers players a glimpse at what the franchise could become and truly shines. SPOILERS AHEAD.
As players progress through Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's campaign, new missions are added to the evidence board in the game's new safe house location, allowing for early missions to be played in any order and some missed entirely. One of the missions is called Desperate Measures and sees the player entering the KGB headquarters in order to gain access to a bunker key so that Adler and Bell can sneak inside and download a list of known sleeper agents. While the second half of the mission is linear and requires little more than shooting enemies, the first half of the mission seems heavily inspired by the recent Hitman trilogy, which is concluding with Hitman 3 in January.
After a briefing with the KGB Generals and a surprise appearance from a fan-favorite Call of Duty 4 villain, the objective is to get ahold of a bunker key. Just like in Hitman, the player is shown a number of ways to get a key and can choose which objectives to complete, including an optional side-objective that ties in a decision made in an earlier mission. It's a refreshing change of pace to go from a standard Call of Duty mission to a sandbox-style mission that offers complete freedom.
One potential way to get ahold of the key is to take out one of the Generals but that requires the player to navigate the level and read through documents to find poison. Another option is to steal a blank key and reprogram it, requiring the player to find something to bride the guard, obtain a new key, sneak into a separate office without being seen, and reprogram the key. Raven Software crafted an exciting new mission that is unlike anything seen before in Call of Duty and yet it felt like a natural step forward.
Toward the end of the campaign, players will come across a mandatory story mission called "Break on Through," one that explores the idea of mind control and brainwashing, while venturing into an exciting and outright weird direction for Call of Duty. The beginning of the mission is fairly straightforward: Bell was injured, and both Adler and Park are reading a mission report to try and jog Bell's memory to find out more about Perseus. In terms of gameplay, this translates to the player making their way through a standard mission with Adler narrating and giving directions. Only the player doesn't have to follow Adler's directions and decisions made can lead down four different paths, with seven possible endings.
Because the player is brainwashed, Adler is reading through a programmed script, and each time one script fails after the player goes in another direction, a new script is started, creating cracks in the world that slowly break the illusion. For a mission that is fairly linear, the presentation creates a much stronger impression of player choice, and that's exciting to play with. On one path, the player is making there way into a cave following Russian voices; in another, it's a stealth fight with the Viet Cong using a bow and arrow. Taking one wrong turn along the way could land players in an old Boxing Arcade game or trapped in a pitch-black cave with only a pistol and a horde of zombies.
Although less experimental than "Break on Through" and "Desperate Measures," Raven Software does offer certain choices throughout the campaign that can result in different endings. For the final mission, players are given the choice to help Adler and reveal the location of Perseus or to betray them and lie. It would have been easy for Raven to create a final mission and just give it multiple coats of paint depending on which ending the player received. Instead, there are two final missions in completely different locations, each with its own characters, story, dialogue, cutscenes, and end.
"Final Countdown" is the "good" ending and sees the player head to Solovetsky, Russia to stop Perseus before Project Greenlight can be activated. On the other hand, the "bad" ending sends players to Duga, Russia in a mission called "Ashes to Ashes" and has Bell join forces with Perseus to take down the CIA including Adler, Park, Call of Duty: Black Ops protagonist Mason, and Frank Woods. Neither of these missions are standout for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and end abruptly with cutscenes explaining the fallout of the campaign; however, its another great example of what the Call of Duty franchise could do with the single-player portion of the game when the developer is given more creative freedom.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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