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

Cold War

So where does the newly announced Black Ops Cold War fit into the overall timeline? Well in a shocking twist, Cold War will actually be a direct sequel to the very first Black Ops game.

That means that all of the events with Reznov, Woods’s supposed death, and more all happened within this period as well.

Set during the early 1980s, players will once again team up with Alex Mason and Frank Woods. Going off what Activision has shown, some flashback sequences can also be seen of the Vietnam War hinting at another campaign spread over several years.

Instead of squeezing the game between Black Ops I and II, Cold War will see all new characters and situations including Lawrence Sims who looks identical to a younger Robert Redford.

This time, however, players will get the opportunity to create and customise their own main character to play alongside these COD legends. Players can choose from several backgrounds as well as their gender and even preferred pronouns.

Cold War has got a lot of explaining to do with the return of Woods as this would indicate that the villain, Kravchenko, also survived the explosion. This confusing mashup of the series is kind of similar to how many horror movie franchises play out when multiple directors get involved or when Fox tries to make another X-Men film.

One element of the new game that is very exciting but ultimately makes things even more complicated is that Cold War will have multiple endings. Several of the missions described by Activision so far mention that players will need to make difficult decisions that will affect the overall ending of the game.

As with many titles like this, there is presumably a “true” ending and the rest are just for flavour. How these decisions may affect the overall timeline depends on the severity of what the player can change. Maybe you could fail so badly that it causes a nuclear apocalypse?

With brilliant stories making their way back into Call of Duty it will be exciting to see what new twists and turns Treyarch has in store for players this time around.

Judging from Modern Warfare’s release, and if Treyarch plays their cards right, then it is almost a given COD fans are in for another excellent addition to the franchise.