The Call Of Duty Black Ops Timeline Explained (So Far)

The Call of Duty franchise has been a staple of modern first-person shooters for almost two decades now with seemingly endless titles stemming from different developers.

The original games by Infinity Ward and Treyarch contained a trilogy of titles centred around World War II with the player seeing events from various allied forces. The split perspective narrative would soon become an iconic feature of the series in the years to come often balanced between American and British soldiers.

We can even thank the very first Call of Duty game for introducing the moustached menace, Captain Price, or what fans believe to be the Grandfather of the John Price we all know and love.

While not directly alluded to, the first Modern Warfare series developed by Infinity Ward seems to continue on from the original trilogy’s roots. This new wave of games set in the modern-day took place between 2011 and 2016 with Task Force 141 hunting down the ruthless Makarov and his associates.

And here we have the main divergence for the franchise where the series split into two separate continuities.

Contrary to how the development process of the first trilogy involved both studios working on the same franchise, the new era of COD had Treyarch branch off, creating Call of Duty: World at War.

This created two distinct and diverging timelines within the Call of Duty mythos allowing for certain creative freedoms for both studios. With Black Ops Cold War just around the corner let’s look back at all those awesome events that led us here.