Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War test: explosive campaign for slow multiplayer

The end of the video game year is settled like clockwork. The same faces are invariably invited to the party, sometimes out of order so as not to get bored. Also, this year it is Call of Duty that it is up to closing the march opened by FIFA 21 coins et Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

View PriceRead ConclusionCall of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War

A surprisingly open campaign
A more nervous multiplayer than Modern Warfare…
Graphically very strong
More accessible killstreaks

Somewhat stiff animations
… but less inspired
A little meager launch content
Balancing issues spoiling the multiplayer experience

And this time, the black team is in charge. Understand: the one responsible for the Black Ops license. The other great Call of Duty saga after Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare which also spoiled us last year, returning in an explosive remake that won us over.

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War also plays with nostalgic fiber. It is neither more nor less than the direct sequel to the original Black Ops, which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary (outch...). It is therefore an opportunity to take a step back from the conflicts in the Middle East to plunge into the Cold War, in the early 80s.

The config point : tested on PC in 1440p with all graphics in Ultra and ray tracing activated in ultra as well. With an RTX 2070, 16 GB of RAM and a Ryzen 5 5600X, the game maintains its 60 frames per second, as long as you activate the DLSS, which makes us regain roughly 20 frames per second.

America in Peril...

At the end of the Second World War, the American army buried dozens of nuclear bombs in most European cities. The goal? Halt, if necessary, the advance of the communist bloc in the West. The problem is that an antagonist (Russian, of course) by the name of Perseus has taken the codes to trigger the famous bombs. Therefore, these codes would allow him to blame the deaths of hundreds of millions of people on the United States.

Somewhat inconvenienced by the situation, Ronald Reagan himself organizes a crisis meeting aimed at organizing the "defense of the free world". A meeting from which Russell Adler, a CIA agent infiltrated with the Russians, leaves with a blank check to stop Perseus, “whatever the cost”. Carte blanche in hand, the special agent brings back his buddies straight out of the first Black Ops: Frank Woods, Jason Hudson and Alex Mason.

And the player in all this? For the first time in the history of the saga, he is invited to create his own avatar to take part in the fight. This will in all cases be referred to by the nickname "Bell", whether it is a man, a woman or a non-binary person (a first in a blockbuster). The game also offers to opt for various perks which, at choice, allow the player to reload faster or inflict more damage when standing still. This little "RPG-lite" side is not, as we will see, the only novelty introduced in the campaign.

Acheter Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War

A short but surprising campaign

If the first missions of the single-player campaign are of a high-sounding classicism, Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War quickly manages to break away from its heritage to vary the pleasures. It should first be noted that between each mission, Bell and his comrades (lol) go back to the “base of operations” box. In this central hub, your character will be briefed on the tasks to be performed, and he will also be able to converse there with the members of the team.

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This is also a first: the game will sometimes let you choose the order of the missions to be carried out. Secondary operations are also appearing to inflate a little the life of the title (5 hours at best). These also mobilize another novelty of the game: the clues.

More open, the different levels of the game invite (finally) to search the environments in order to unearth evidence. These can be inspected from the central hub and serve as a basis for thinking about the strategic choices you will have to make. Which brings us to another new feature of Black Ops - Cold War: your avatar has multiple dialogue options.

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Kill this informant who has already revealed all his secrets or take him prisoner to cook him more; free this hostage or take advantage of his detention to grab hold of an enemy commander… The choices left to the player are very binary, but contribute to momentarily letting go of his hand in an adventure which, without it, would be totally over the phone. Obviously, your journey and the choices you have made there will be able to modify the outcome of the scenario, and several endings are on the menu.

It's refreshing, for a Call of Duty. And it's all the more surprising that some missions almost border on the immersive sim, these Deus Ex-like games that offer the player a wide variety of approaches to achieve his ends.

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Don't get me wrong: the heart of the game is still going boom-boom-boom to kill America's enemies. But Treyarch is trying things out, and it's to its credit. This attitude contrasts, as we will see, with its approach to multiplayer mode.

Graphically, what does it look like?

Still based on the new version of the IW Engine inaugurated last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War dazzles with its management of lights and the realism of faces.

Second opus to offer ray tracing, Black Ops - Cold War does it in a much more controlled way than Modern Warfare. By multiplying the nocturnal missions, the title makes it possible to observe magnificent reflections and extremely precise shadows.

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It's a pity that the multiplayer mode maps don't really replicate the level design of the campaign, which repeatedly offers majestic panoramas.

What about the PS5 version?

Alongside the PC version, we were able to test this new Call of vintage on PS5. We offer you a gameplay phase with ray tracing activated in the video below.

The game offers two display modes: 4K60 with ray tracing (dynamic 4K) or a 120 frames per second mode in a dynamic resolution that seems to approach 1440p. For the latter, it will be necessary to have an HDMI 2.1 compatible TV. In both modes, the game is perfectly fluid and seems to approach "ultra" settings on PC.

But the real novelty is the haptic feedback and the adaptive triggers of the DualSense, which are simply stunning! To take aim, it will be necessary to force the left trigger, and each bullet fired is felt precisely in the controller with a recoil that we would consider real. More bullets in the magazine? The trigger jams. The sound part also takes advantage of the 3D sound of the PS5, and if you have a compatible helmet, the immersion will be total.

Old school multiplayer

After a big weekend spent in Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War multiplayer, it's an understatement to say that our impressions of the alpha and beta have been confirmed. This new Black Ops has set itself the task of scrupulously deconstructing everything that Infinity Ward had tried to do differently last year.

But this approach makes sense, and we'll get to that later. First, let's get down to describing what the multiplayer experience is all about.

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Players who have dropped the series for a few years will not be lost. We find everything that has made the salt of the license since its inception, with classic game modes that give pride of place to 6 versus 6 clashes (TDM, Domination, Search & Destruction, Strategic Point, Confirmed elimination, Control). But newcomers are invited to the party, such as Escort VIP. In this mode, a player is designated as a VIP and must be escorted by their team to one of two extraction points on the map. Problem: death is final, and the VIP is only equipped with a pistol and a few accessories.

Another atmosphere, the Combined Arms mode. This time we go to a 12 against 12 configuration, with vehicles, on larger maps in which the goal is to keep control of 5 points of interest. A sort of substitute for Battlefield's Conquest mode, or a smaller model of Modern Warfare's "Ground War" mode (2019).

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Finally, the biggest novelty is to be found on the side of the Dirty Bomb mode which… is inspired, shall we say, by Warzone. 10 teams of 4 players are parachuted onto a huge map on which they must open chests to recover uranium. You must then deposit enough uranium to fuel the 5 bombs placed on the map. The team that explodes the most bombs wins.

In this game mode, unlike all the others, you can open doors, jump over obstacles and equip armor plates to resist enemy attacks. Our teammates can also revive us if we're down. In short, this is a polite invitation to download a certain Battle Royale that has been making headlines at Activision since its release last spring.

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Balancing issues

The progression in the multiplayer mode is very classic. By playing, we accumulate experience which makes us rise in rank, and therefore unlock new accessories, weapons and assets. Where Treyarch, Raven and Beenox vary the formula is on the elimination series, which are no longer conditioned by the number of players killed, but by an accumulation of points. Also, these "point streaks" are not reset when you die. Virtuous, in our opinion, in that this approach allows players who do not excel in confrontations, but play the objective to take advantage of bonuses such as the automatic turret or the attack helicopter.

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However, Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War's multiplayer fails in many ways. First of all, there is this huge concern for balancing, which means that only three days after the game's release, a meta is already well in place. Let's be clear: the MP5 submachine gun absolutely outperforms all weapons currently in the game. No recoil, crazy shooting rate and distance, very easy to handle: the only way to have fun with another weapon is to play in hardcore mode where, anyway, the slightest impact kills.

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We must also mention the aggressiveness of SBMM (skilled based matchmaking), which means that if you do very well in a game, you will automatically be "matched" with players with a very high K/D ratio. This system is not new, but it is currently very poorly calibrated. We have sometimes come out of a game with a ratio of 2.5 and, in the next, to be faced with players much stronger than us, to the point of finishing with a ratio of 0.5.

These adjustments will take time, and lots of developer feedback will be needed to fix them. But if there is one thing that the teams will have trouble rectifying, it is the maps of this Black Ops - Cold War.

Maps from another age

The patent classicism of Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War is perhaps best illustrated when looking at the 10 maps available at launch. In addition to this particularly low figure (Modern Warfare had 17), the maps do absolutely no honor to Treyarch's usual mastery in terms of level design.

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Taking all the famous “three-lane design” which had been so missed by the disappointed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, they promote dynamism and overclocked action: a good point. On the other hand, they suffer from a certain lack of inspiration and, more seriously still, from an almost total absence of verticality.

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In Black Ops - Cold War, we are grounded. And, a year after Modern Warfare, that gravity weighs heavy. So yes, to compensate, players move faster. The slides are also more generous. But, in general, we quickly got around to what the 8 maps of the classic game modes offer (the other two are reserved for the Dirty Bomb and Combined Weapons modes).

The reception of Black Ops - Cold War's multiplayer mode has been very mixed. And for good reason: it deviates a lot from the Modern Warfare proposal to return to more historical bases. We salute there a desire to please the greatest number, but regret that this is done at the cost of a freshness to which the countryside had pleasantly accustomed us.

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The return of zombie mode

If there is one aspect on which Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War is unanimous, it is its zombie mode. A player favorite since it first appeared on Call of Duty: World at War in 2008, zombie mode has become Treyarch's specialty. The studio can thus deploy all its know-how in terms of strange storytelling and easter eggs.

In this new chapter, direction Die Maschine. A never-before-seen map set in Poland, around an old Nazi bunker. The formula, it evolves little, and that's good. The idea is always to face successive waves of zombies with four players by going deeper and deeper into the bunker in order to unlock more powerful weapons, assets and many other things.

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With a full-bodied difficulty, the zombie mode is best enjoyed with friends. As long as you manage to coordinate yourself, that goes without saying. A major challenge also awaits players who decide to call a helicopter to exfiltrate. A gigantic wave of enemies will descend on the group during the long minutes preceding the landing of the latter.

Let us add that, this year, it is possible to bring in the zombie mode its loadouts of weapons of the multiplayer as well as the operators which one has already unlocked. Besides, the progression of the rank is joint, whether you play multiplayer mode, zombie mode or even Warzone.

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Finally, as a treat, Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War also marks the release of Dead Ops Arcade 3, the next chapter in the top-down multiplayer "arcade game". The concept is not much different from the classic zombie mode, but the reduced field of vision offers an equally well-balanced challenge for seasoned players.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, l’avis de Clubic

Best-selling episode in the history of the license with 31 million units, Black Ops drags a sacred heritage. Also, the fact for the company to offer him a direct sequel appears as puzzling as it is daring.

Despite everything, Treyarch and Raven are doing very well on the single player campaign of this Black Ops - Cold War. Innovative in some aspects, it offers the Hollywood experience we were entitled to expect for a license of this caliber.

Our appreciation of the multiplayer mode, however, is less enthusiastic, but we readily recognize it as divisive. It will please those disappointed with Modern Warfare and will leave those who were seduced by the latter in 2019 unmoved. If we can agree that the clashes are more nervous and instantaneous than last year, we regret major balancing issues and, above all, a certain lack of inspiration in the content.

Fortunately, the zombie mode is there to catch up with everything and enhance our final impression. Always as fun, and more complex than it seems, it will certainly offer dozens of hours of cold sweat to players who love the experience.

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War presents itself as the perfect antithesis of a Modern Warfare which, last year, tried to change the formula. Here, we find historical bases that will appeal to some, but will disappoint others who hoped to find continuity in the multiplayer approach. Treyarch and Raven went the coaster route instead, and sadly that choice doesn't combine with a huge variety in playstyles or even content.

As a consolation, this new Black Ops offers a very well-crafted single player campaign and a zombie mode whose return is always a small event. Hopefully, to heighten our impressions a bit, the game's future DLCs (all free) will be able to smooth out some of the rough edges we've detailed in this test.