Activision's Call of Duty franchise had consistently led the way in many areas of the genre -- until Fortnite. In addition to adopting a similar battle pass system in Blackout, Call of Duty is taking another page from the Fortnite playbook by introducing live, in-game reveals of upcoming content.
Warzone is the latest iteration of a Call of Duty battle royale and it has been very successful so far. Activision has taken the best features from its competitors and wrapped them in a fun, fast-paced game with all the trappings of Modern Warfare. Warzone has been so popular that Activision will include a version of it in every CoD title moving forward, with changes to each iteration.
The latest Warzone evolution will arrive in Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War. Aside from a teaser trailer and a few promotional items, Activision mostly kept gamers in the dark about what to expect -- until its most recent live event.
Instead of featuring a passive stream with a scripted event, which is the usual Fortnite live event formula, Activision showed players a full, secret mission. The usual options for Warzone game modes were all replaced with a single mode: "Know your history."
When players loaded the mode, it set the entire lobby loose on the Warzone map Verdansk to accomplish a series of tasks. Players had to collect five Intel pieces by slaying five enemy players, which rewarded them with a new emblem. Then, they were directed to find a key-card that was marked on the map, to acquire a new calling card. Once that was complete, players were tasked with finding the cipher, which led to a glowing, yellow box with the code inside.
The final task was fairly vague: It had the words "wield the weapon" and a map coordinate. Following the coordinates led to different locations for different people trying to complete this task, but everyone encountered a NPC from Black Ops 1 and Cold War: Frank Woods. Woods held the weapon players were meant to wield and talking to him awarded a blueprint for a legendary SKS called "The Bay of Pigs" (another reference to Black Ops 1).
Minutes after the mission was accomplished, Call of Duty players loaded into a brand new instance of Verdansk and were given just one instruction: Run to the stadium, get to safety. With a sense of urgency due to dozens of planes flying overheard, and the beginning of the previously-shown teaser trailer playing partially across the screen, players had to sprint across the map to make it to the stadium in time. Once they made it, the screen lit up as a possible nuke was dropped on the map -- and revealed the brand new trailer for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War.
The trailer cemented a lot of rumors about the game, most notably that it's a direct sequel to Black Ops 1, and all of the supporting cast seem to be returning (though there's no word on Reznov). The trailer went out of its way to show a heavy emphasis on the boots on the ground gameplay that made Black Ops 1 and 2 so beloved. The reveal was heavy on story details, but light on what many players were hoping to see -- the multiplayer mode, which will be revealed Sept. 9.
This event was the perfect encapsulation of what Activision has done with Warzone in general. It takes the best things other games are doing and makes them better. The future of Call of Duty continues to look bright.
Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War will be available Nov. 13 for all platforms.