Announced much later than most Call of Duty titles, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is Treyarch’s newest entry in the beloved Black Ops series. Taking place after the original Black Ops, this game is set to be a return to form for the series as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was for the Modern Warfare series.
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Unsurprisingly, many parallels between both games have been drawn. While Modern Warfare is one of the most successful Call of Duty titles of all time, some of the decisions the reboot made were questionable at best. With Treyarch planning on doing something rather similar to Black Ops Cold War, now is the perfect time to look at what it needs to surpass Modern Warfare.
10 Replayable Single-Player Campaign
After the immense backlash from Black Ops 4 not having a campaign, Treyarch seems to be upping the ante by introducing a single-player campaign that has multiple endings and a customizable player protagonist.
These are great steps towards making a fun campaign that’s replayable. Replayability is key to making a Call of Duty campaign that lasts past the game’s shelf life. Bringing back customizable loadouts similar to Black Ops 2’s campaign would go even further with making this campaign more enjoyable and memorable than Modern Warfare’s offering.
9 Prestige Ranks
In nearly every Call of Duty game, players could choose to prestige once they hit the level cap in multiplayer. This would reset a player’s unlocks and loadouts in exchange for a unique emblem next to their name and, in some titles, prestige tokens or unique camos.
Modern Warfare removed this system altogether. Once players reach the “soft” level cap of 55, they can continue to accrue experience until they reach level 155. If a player is past level 55 at the end of a season, it gets reset back to level 55. It’s a strange system that lacks the visual flair and long-term grind prestige ranks provided.
8 Smaller File Size
It isn’t uncommon to hear of players purchasing hard drives for the sole purpose of installing Modern Warfare on them. Even after recent size reductions, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is a monstrous 200GB partly due to the game installing Call of Duty: Warzone as well.
Players that don’t own Modern Warfare but play Warzone don’t fair much better, needing to reserve 100GB of space to play it. The size of this game is astronomical and nearly unrivaled this console generation. It would help if players could install Black Ops Cold War without having to sacrifice so much hard drive space.
7 A Great Zombies Map
Treyarch’s Zombies mode is a major highlight with each of their titles. The mode’s great mix of short and mid-term goals keep players engaged for hundreds of hours on end. That said, the coveted mode hasn’t always launched in the best state.
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Black Ops 2’s Tranzit was a colossal failure due to its overambition. Black Ops 3’s Shadows of Evil was controversial at launch although highly praised by the community now. Black Ops 4’s major changes to Perk-A-Colas and overall game-flow turned some players away from the mode. Needless to say, the Zombies community has never been so divided on what the mode should be. Whomever Treyarch decides to appease to in Cold War, they need to knock it out of the park with this iteration.
6 Better Audio
Audio improvements might sound incongruent with the rest of the suggestions on this list, but a large reason why camping is so prevalent in Modern Warfare is due to how loud footsteps are. Sprinting can be heard across most 6v6 or 10v10 maps and charging through doors is as loud as an explosion.
This can be viewed as a design decision by Infinity Ward to keep matches slower, but the issue is that footsteps, gunfire, generally any noise is incredibly inconsistent. Certain conditions make enemy footsteps near inaudible while ally footsteps can be heard from across a map. To keep multiplayer matches more consistent and to help encourage aggressive gunfights, Treyarch should go back to how audio has been handled in past Call of Duty titles. At least Dead Silence is a perk in Black Ops Cold War and not a Field Upgrade.
5 Wager Matches
Wager Matches were unique game modes in Call of Duty: Black Ops that allowed players to wager in-game currency named COD Points—not to be confused with the real-money currency the more modern games use—and compete in strange yet intense game modes.
One in the Chamber, Sticks and Stones, and Gun Game are just a few examples of the creative game types that were tied with Wager Matches. The gambling aspect of Wager Matches could be left behind if it ever returned, but the game types themselves left for a unique experience that no other Call of Duty multiplayer mode can provide.
4 Map Voting System
Older Call of Duty titles allowed every player in a given lobby to vote for one of three maps they wished to play on. Whichever map received the most votes would be queued for the next match. This did result in players voting for the same few maps in each game, however, resulting in Infinity Ward removing the feature outright in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
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Removing map voting has resulted in players outright leaving matches instead of vetoing or voting for a preferred map. Having a great selection of maps in the first place makes this feature less needed, but not every map in a Call of Duty game is going to be a fan-favorite. At least incorporating a lobby veto system in the next Call of Duty would go a long way to fighting players that leave mid-game because of the map or mode.
3 Return Of The Gunsmith
Instead of having multiple variants of the same weapon in Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward instead introduced the Gunsmith. This system allows players to morph weapons to suit their playstyle by changing virtually any part of the gun.
It allowed for a much larger roster of potential weapons than most Call of Duty games release with. Bringing this system forward in Black Ops Cold War would be a large boon to the game’s customization.
2 Better Multiplayer Maps
Simply put, Modern Warfare’s multiplayer maps have too many power positions that allow campers to reign in killstreaks with little risk. Maps build around 10v10 gunfights and large sightlines are the main reasons why players dislike Modern Warfare’s map selection.
While making every map a three-lane shooting gallery wouldn’t be much better, a balance between large maps and small, intense maps is key to making a fan-favorite Call of Duty game. Fortunately, Treyarch has a good track record with making solid yet varied multiplayer maps.
1 No Skill-Based Matchmaking
Skill-based matchmaking (SBMM for short) is a system that matches players together based on skill level. A player’s skill level is comprised of their kill-death ratio, win rate, and a variety of other unknown factors. This system is meant to keep the best Modern Warfare players from fighting newer, less experienced players.
The issue with SBMM is that it eliminates casual matches. Players are always matched against players on par with their own skills, meaning they must try their hardest every game to win. Victory is paradoxically punished by pitting players against even stronger opponents until they eventually lose, preventing win streaks while promoting a more toxic atmosphere. Having a matchmaking system where it favors internet connections between players instead of skill level would be a night-and-day difference for most of the Call of Duty fanbase.
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