COLD SHOULDER

CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS – COLD WAR can’t top Warzone.

- Morgan Park

Talking to friends and colleagues about a new Call of Duty is never the same as our banter about other games. As an annual series defined by incremental changes to a formula, nitpicking is ingrained in the discourse. That’s certainly the case for Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, a good game that falls short of its predecessor. Instead of being undermined by unforgivable sins, it’s an accumulation of smaller flaws, like how guns feel or maps flow.

Despite welcome adjustments to Create-a-Class and a fun (if brief ) campaign, Call of Duty has been a lot better before. In fact, a better Call of Duty game released last year – the free-to-play battle royale madness of Call of Duty: Warzone.

Warzone’s longevity makes Cold War a harder sell. There is no longer a single de facto CoD. As of December, Activision has unified progression across Warzone and Cold War with shared ranks, weapons, battle passes, and cosmetics. A rank gained in one will automatically carry into the other. Both games have prominent main menu buttons that launch into the other, seamlessly bringing your party along as well. By merging into a strange FPS homunculus, Call of Duty is, in its own way, evolving into a single service game hub with Warzone at its centre.