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

The Future Of The Franchise

When Black Ops II came around it was a huge surprise to fans that we would not only be returning to the Cold War era, but also be exploring the not so distant future of 2025.

Treyarch pulled another sneaky one by revealing that both Franks Woods and Kravchenko survived the explosion in the previous game. The story leaps between an aged Woods recounting his missions in the 1980s and Alex Mason’s son, David, hunting down the arms dealer known as Raul Menendez.

Following the events of Black Ops, Menendez became the next big bad on the scene with Mason and Woods teaming up once more to take him down.

Hunting Menendez becomes personal when Woods accidentally kills Josefina, Raul’s sister. After supposedly locating the arms dealer once more, Woods executes the target only to find out that he had been switched with Alex Mason.

Before anything else can happen, Woods is crippled and left for dead. Depending on the player’s actions you can actually save Mason by shooting him in several non-lethal locations rather than going for the prompted headshot.

David would later avenge both Woods and his father by finally bringing down Menendez over thirty years later.

The Black Ops storyline becomes a little convoluted following the second title. You could almost always imagine World at War to Black Ops II as an unofficial trilogy much like Sergio Leone’s Westerns or Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War films.

It was following these titles when Call of Duty hit its critical lowest, gone were the amazing storylines revolving around fan favourite characters. Now the franchise seemed to be darting all over the place with entirely disconnected titles like whatever the hell was going on in Black Ops III’s convoluted mess of a story.

Sticking with the future theme, Black Ops III focused on the aftermath of Menendez's chaos sewn in the previous game. Mason junior and co are all absent from the story making it feel like a standalone experience more similar to Infinity Ward's Advanced and Infinite Warfare titles.

To make matters worse, Black Ops 4 didn't even have a campaign to speak of aside from some character backstories for the newly introduced operators.