The Call Of Duty Black Ops Timeline Explained (So Far)
Reznov, Mason & The Numbers
Instead of starting from scratch once more, Treyarch launched Call of Duty Black Ops, an unofficial sequel to World at War’s campaign.
Instead of featuring two divided storylines between different forces, Black Ops focused on Alex Mason’s story split up into several flashbacks to emphasize the new protagonist’s fractured mind.
Kicking off, chronologically, with our favourite Russian duo, Dimitri and Reznov, as they embark on an Arctic mission to discover a mysterious and deadly compound known as Nova-6. The mission goes pear-shaped resulting in the death of Dimitri and the capture of Reznov.
Thankfully, Reznov was thrown into a POW camp where he met our new hero, Mason who had been captured on a mission to assassinate Fidel Castro with Frank Woods in Cuba.
After his capture, he and Reznov were subjected to multiple tests pertaining to a sequence of numbers. The hypnotic numbers were being used to create sleeper agents to be sent back Stateside for when Nova-6 was ready to be unleashed.
Both Mason and Reznov managed to escape the prison before being totally brainwashed... or so we thought.
Not long after returning to active duty, our heroes are out on another assassination mission, this time to take out Colonel Kravchenko and go uncover where Nova-6 is being kept. Despite their best efforts, Mason’s long-time war buddy Frank Woods is seemingly killed alongside Kravchenko in a huge explosion.
The documents found thanks to Wood’s sacrifice lead the team directly to the Nova-6 scientist, Steiner. In a shocking turn of events, Mason executes the man proclaiming “My name is Victor Reznov, and I shall have my revenge!” Seeing his descent into madness, Mason’s team brought him into custody for interrogation.
It turns out Reznov had actually died during their initial prison break and Mason was merely hallucinating the Russian veteran. With this new revelation and with Steiner gone, Mason is the only one who can stop the remaining agents from unleashing Nova-6.
In order to stop the other sleeper agents and the incessant numbers, Mason leads the charge and successfully takes down the control tower intended to broadcast the sleeper’s orders.