CoD Cold War offers three very different games in one with a single-player campaign, multiplayer and the zombies mode. In our review, we find out how good this overall package is, how it compares to Modern Warfare, and for whom it’s worth buying.

Campaign: The absolute highlight

Cold War’s story picks up right at the end of 2010’s first Black Ops installment (so take a look at our story recap beforehand) and transports us to the Cold War era, specifically the early 1980s. As a member of an international team of agents, our job is to take down the Soviet spy Perseus. And surprise: CoD Cold War doesn’t turn the setting into a pure shooting gallery with explosions every second, but cleverly plays to the strengths of the secret service scenario!

In multiple-choice dialogues we influence the direct reaction of our counterpart. However, only a few decisions have really serious effects.

This starts with the fact that for the first time in the series we create a character ourselves, including military history, character traits (in the form of Perks) and gender. Although our choice has little effect on the course of the game, the character editor sets the tone for the playful freedom that runs through the entire campaign.

For example, there are different solutions to several missions, such as when we infiltrate the headquarters of an enemy intelligence agency. Do we bribe a high ranking officer? Do we poison a general’s drink? Or do we hack the computer in the server room? Of course there are also many classic CoD action sequences, and in one of the Vietnam War flashbacks we are even in an attack helicopter. In surprisingly many missions, however, we can also quietly sneak ahead, pick locks, secretly take out enemies, and even hide their bodies in the closet in the best Hitman manner. For an even better agent feeling, we have three tips for you:

If you pay close attention, you’ll also discover heaps of evidence in the form of maps, documents or photos during the missions. This even allows you to unlock optional side missions in our improvised headquarters between missions, which in turn influence the end of the main storyline. By the way, the story is extremely exciting and a welcome change from the hackneyed war scenarios of the CoD series.

Among others, we’re transported to the Berlin Wall, the Jamantau Mountains and Vietnam, where Black Ops and even Modern Warfare fans will discover a few allusions. Overall, the campaign varies skillfully between stealth, action and story stages and conveys the agent setting really well most of the time. The extremely atmospheric lighting also contributes to the atmosphere, which is especially impressive in the night levels.

Overall, Cold War’s campaign is one of the best CoD stories in recent years, but it’s not entirely free of problems. The US is once again presented as world saviors and the Russians as evil villains, and locations like East Berlin are rife with historical errors: GDR guards like to carry an MP5 and Doritos ads hang in the subway. The fact that our main character remains mute and faceless is also a missed opportunity, especially in view of the character editor.

It’s almost always worth listening to the casual dialogues between NPCs, because they are cleverly written and staged.

Besides clumsy clichés, the scope is also a big point of criticism: after about five hours, the credits roll – at least the different decisions and endings invite you to run through again. With a bit more development or playing time, the branching narrative structure, the depth of the characters and the story could have unfolded much better.

Zombies: Co-op fun for in-between times

If you’re into both co-op games and zombies, then Black Ops: Cold War’s Zombie mode is for you: Together with three other players, we go into battle against the living dead and try to hold our own round by round against more and more opponents, who get successively stronger. The setting is roughly interwoven with the main storyline of Cold War., but ultimately stands on its own and doesn’t take itself nearly as seriously as the solo campaign.

The crunchy difficulty level ensures that we don’t get very far in the first few rounds before we’re overrun by undead. Because on the one hand you shouldn’t get in the way of your team, but on the other hand you shouldn’t distance yourself too much either, so that you can be brought back to your feet in an emergency.

The steep learning curve is also accompanied by the motivation to do better next time – we quickly get a real desire to find out the best tricks, weapons and tricks to defend ourselves against the undead attackers in the long run. And here Cold War: Zombies offers a lot to discover and experiment with!

Not only is choosing and upgrading the right weapon essential. Just as important is when and how much of our earned credit we invest in optional power-ups at purchase stations. If we die in one round, we’ll have to give up our hard-won equipment in the next.

So we feverishly search for the deadliest combination: the combat knife as a primary weapon combined with a sprint boost for a melee combo? Or do we trust to chance and, with a bit of luck, pull a particularly exotic laser weapon from a treasure chest? In any case, we have to be prepared for the next tough boss!

All of this is fun, especially with a well-rehearsed team, because the flow of the game often comes to a standstill with strangers. A group that has been thrown together likes to scatter across the freely accessible map, on which hunt for various secret rooms or mission objectives.. Then the game over screen is only a matter of time.

So close we should not come to the rotten opponents of course, a bite already harms us sensitively!

So relying on matchmaking would be a big mistake in Zombies mode accordingly – but if we have a few friends at the start, this mode is a fun alternative to common co-op shooters on the market, such as Left4Dead, Killing Floor or World War Z. Compared to Modern Warfare’s equally thin and undemanding Spec Ops mode, this co-op is definitely worth a look again!

However, we still have to express one serious restriction: At release, there is only one map for the fight against the living dead, The Machine. We have seen and explored everything there after a few evenings at the latest, and there is still hope for an imminent supply in the form of the promised free DLC chapters.

Multiplayer: One step back

At first glance, little changes in CoD Cold War’s multiplayer: we dash across the maps as an elite soldier, earn points by shooting down or capturing positions, and thus rise in rank, which earns us new weapons, attachments, skins, badges, and other stuff. So far, so Call of Duty. The innovations are more in the details.

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Bumpy animations like this we see in almost every match.

First noticeable feature: Cold War is uncompromisingly oldschool and throws most of the innovations of its predecessor overboard. Laying and stabilizing the weapons on obstacles, interactive doors, night vision and the reduced minimap from CoD Modern Warfare are all history.

And what about Warzone?

Even though Warzone can be launched from the Cold War menu, we consider the Free2Pla offshoot to be its own game. Therefore, Warzone is not included in the rating. Nevertheless, there are overlaps: Warzone will soon share the ranking system with Cold War and MW and will also receive content supplies such as weapons from the Cold War arsenal.

This makes the battles overall a whole lot faster and also more chaotic – despite the slightly higher Time to Kill, i.e. the amount of hits we have to land before our opponent keels over. Whereas Modern Warfare still dared small tactical nuances at that time, Cold War returns to the absolutely puristic “Run & Gun”.

A big step back also make the animations: Especially in direct comparison to MW, running, shooting and reloading feels significantly bumpier. Especially MW newcomers have to get used to a significantly rougher control. This also applies to the animations and the recoil feeling of the weapons, as we show here in the comparison video:

CoD Cold War vs. Modern Warfare: The weapons in direct comparison

When we throw our field upgrade, for example, it already looks a bit wooden from the first-person perspective – but the regression in the animations becomes really noticeable when we look at other players: When we watch enemies or teammates sprinting or climbing, their movements look wooden and jerky. Often it even seems as if we or our teammates suffer from lag jerks, despite a flawless connection.

This is not only visually unattractive, but in combination with the high game speed, it makes for unfair situations and balance problems. In almost every match in the test, we suddenly lost sight of an opponent in the middle of a firefight because he started jumping around wildly or sliding on his knees. While we can almost always follow such moves in MW due to the comprehensible movements, slides and bunnyhopping are a real pain in Cold War:

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We anticipate the enemy, but not that he will sail past us by aerial leap. Many firefights are decided with this.

This problem is exacerbated by the lighting situation on many maps. All too often, enemies are barely or not at all visible before it’s too late – especially near light sources like fire or in vegetation, player visibility is anything but optimal.

Instead of Killstreaks as in MW, a new hybrid of the Scorestreak system is used in Cold War’s multiplayer. We earn our powerful power-ups through a Points mix for conquering targets and kills.

Big difference: the new Scorestreaks should become more beginner-friendly and prevent frustration by no longer losing our progress at death. What sounds like a good plan on paper, in practice takes a whole lot of tension out of the Streaks!

Whereas in Modern Warfare we started to shake during each kill streak because we could lose everything in one fell swoop at any time, the opposite is true in Cold War. Instead of getting heart palpitations, we just shrug and rely on the fact that we’ll get our air strike or Predator missile eventually anyway, as long as we don’t act completely stupid.

In the end, the Scorestreak dam: Who plays against good team, has to fight towards the end of the round often with a whole parade of helicopters and other dangers.

Still: With 16 different rewards ranging from a bow with incendiary arrows to an AC-130 fighter plane, there is a wide and quite creative selection of destructive options. Very cool: With a squadron of interceptors, we can counter enemy streaks in the air!

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