The release of the new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is approaching, and the alpha starts this evening on PS4. MeinMMO shows you 6 innovations in multiplayer that will help you assess the new title.
What’s this about? The new Call of Duty is knocking at the door – the open alpha starts this evening on PlayStation. With Black Ops Cold War, the CoD makers take you a few decades back to the Cold War era and let you, as ordinary soldiers, fight the disputes of the superpowers.
To know what you are getting into, here are some of the key innovations and adjustments compared to the predecessor Modern Warfare. Keep in mind that most points come from experiences of an alpha version of the CW multiplayer. This may change in parts until the release.
1. Structure and Details of the Maps
What can I expect from the maps? The multiplayer maps of Modern Warfare were one of the biggest points of criticism from the start. Especially the size and vertical levels with lots of windows annoyed many players. There were demands to return to the familiar 3-lane system of earlier games.
With Cold War, this is at least somewhat true. The known maps correspond more to the spirit of earlier maps, but a true return to the 3-lane system looks different. You will discover these 3 paths in broad strokes, but all lanes offer many more options for flanking or cover that provide an advantage on a specific side.
Additionally, some maps are more dynamic. On the ocean map “Armada,” for example, two parallel moving warships fight against each other, there are plenty of water vehicles available, and you can quickly switch sides using zip lines.
Moreover, there will be no more doors that you can open and close – this has been a thorn in the side of many players in MW.
In terms of color, something is also changing: The maps of Cold War will be significantly more colorful than in Modern Warfare. Compared to other “Black Ops” titles, however, developer Treyarch is holding back – the colors will not be as crazy as before. They aim for a realistic look and likely want to convey the spirit of the 70s/80s. “Miami” may represent the maximum in this regard. Here, you battle through the vibrant nightlife of the coastal city.
2. Comprehensive Cross-Play
Modern Warfare was already a pioneer in cross-play, allowing players from different platforms to face each other in a CoD for the first time. Cold War goes even further, offering not only cross-platform but also cross-generation. So you could form a squad that is active on 5 different platforms:
- PlayStation 4
- PlayStation 5
- Xbox One
- Xbox Series X
- PC
In Modern Warfare, cross-platform gameplay works flawlessly, and it is great news for all players that cross-play is gradually becoming an industry standard. If you don’t like this, you can also deactivate cross-play.
3. Scorestreak
One of the biggest adjustments is the brand new scorestreak system, which differs significantly from the “CoD MW” killstreak system but also does not operate like earlier scorestreaks. You collect your points throughout the entire match. No matter how often you go down – your streak points remain and you continue to accumulate towards your 3 selected streaks.
However, it’s not that you unlock the strongest streaks in every match even if you continuously respawn. Multiple kills without dying remain important, as each additional kill gives you more points. The CoD YouTuber “TheXclusiveAce” calculated this in his English YouTube video.
Kills required for the strong 6,000 point streak
- If you don’t die, you need 15 consecutive kills
- If you consistently get 3 kills and then go down, you need 60 kills
- With 2 kills per life, it’s 80 kills
- If you always eliminate one opponent and then go down, it’s 120 kills per round
The calculation is greatly simplified, as it rarely runs that regularly, and you also earn points for other actions. But it already shows how important consecutive kills are in Cold War as well. The first kill gives you 50 points. Kill 2 – 4 gives you 100 points each. And starting from kill number 5, you get 500 points for each enemy eliminated. At even higher streaks, the point count could increase further.
Another change: You can use the streaks multiple times in one life, but not spam them. When you use the equipment, you can start accumulating points for the streak again 90 seconds after the use ends. Previously, you could only deploy a drone once if you didn’t go down in between.
4. Time-to-Kill
Similarly, the new CoD takes different paths than its predecessors. You have 150 health, compared to CoD MW which has 100, and the time-to-kill (TTK) is generally higher than in CoD 2019.
To give you a direct comparison, the YouTuber “TheXclusiveAce” has compared some average TTK values of Black Ops 4, CoD MW, and Cold War:
However, the bare numbers show only half the truth. Black Ops 4 had an extremely low headshot multiplier of x1.1. Although this could be increased with attachments, it wasn’t the case for every weapon. Cold War, on the other hand, likely has a headshot multiplier for automatic weapons that hovers around x1.35 / x1.4. This leads to the following comparison:
- Black Ops 4: Headshots were weak and rarely resulted in a reduction of TTK
- Modern Warfare: Headshots are already more important – often you could reduce TTK with 2 or fewer HS hits
- Cold War: Headshots are important – just one HS hit reduces TTK
Ace called it “the best of both worlds” and finds the new solution appealing and sensible. Precise aiming is directly rewarded, bringing the TTK for automatic weapons down to “CoD MW” levels, while you have to shoot longer with regular hits, but the TTK is not excessively high here either.
Good to know: After taking damage, it takes 4.5 seconds for your healing to start. After a maximum of 1.8 seconds, you will have healed your complete health.
In addition, you can now see how much health your enemy has, as there are health bars. A normal hit deducts damage from the bar as a white segment, and a headshot is indicated by a yellow segment. The “health bar” can also be disabled.
5. Loadout System
When assembling your loadouts, some tweaks were made, but the system resembles that of Modern Warfare very closely – with small but fine differences:
- You can carry one primary and one secondary weapon
- Weapons can be enhanced with 5 attachments and have a total of 8 possible slots (similar to CoD MW)
- You have again 1x lethal primary equipment and 1x tactical equipment
- Field upgrades are now part of the class and are no longer selected outside of the loadout
- The attachments show you the detailed changes to the weapon in percentages – this was very opaque in CoD MW
- Many attachments offer only advantages – in CoD MW most also came with disadvantages
- Cold War has “wildcards” that drastically improve your loadout
The biggest change here is undoubtedly the wildcards. These extra perks replace, for example, the powerful overkill perk that allowed you to carry 2 main weapons. The currently known wildcards are:
- Danger Close – 2 different lethal and tactical equipment / full ammunition reserves
- Law Breaker – Overkill replacement allows free selection of weapon slots / also free choice for perks (for example, a blue perk in the normally yellow slot)
- Gunfighter – Allows you to fill all 8 attachment slots of the primary weapon with attachments (instead of 5 it’s 8 attachments on one weapon)
- Perk Greed – Allows you to take 2 perks per perk slot (but always in the respective category)
Overall, Cold War thus offers a very similar system to Modern Warfare but brings its own charm. The wildcards introduce an exciting new system, and especially the fact that Overkill disappears from the list of normal perks could lead to more variability.
6. Mobility
Black Ops Cold War will be played more mobile than Modern Warfare. While you’ll need to shoot at enemies longer, you will, for example, aim faster. However, there are also some adjustments to movement mechanics.
Running Speed
You can regulate your speed more than in Modern Warfare. There is an extra button that lets you walk slowly but quietly. Your sounds also depend more on your speed. If you run faster, your opponents hear you better.
Sprinting
The tactical sprint from CoD MW is completely gone. Double-clicking the controller stick is no longer necessary in Cold War. Instead, you now have a “sprint takeoff.” When you start running, you have a higher speed for a short time, which then gradually decreases to the normal sprint pace. However, how the mechanics work in detail still needs to be shown.
Water & Swimming
Unlike in Modern Warfare, you can move in the water. A small dive does not immediately lead to respawning.
Crouching / Sliding
How this works with the new Cold War is also not yet fully clarified. The makers have already announced that there will be further adjustments. Currently, it looks like sliding is directly related to crouching. If you slide, you go directly into a crouch. Stopping the slide to move forward faster (slide-cancel) is also a topic, and it has proven to be useful and quick in the alpha that streamers were allowed to play a few weeks ago. However, nothing is set in stone yet, and it is expected to be adjusted further.
Jumping / Bunny-Hopping
You can’t jump as high and you will be slowed down a bit while jumping. It gives the impression that the developers want to reduce the hopping seen in recent years further. A jump already provides enough advantages and should also come with disadvantages. However, balancing here is also not completely finalized.
If you want to get an optical impression of the “Cold War” gameplay, check out the colleagues at GameStar – here you can find 10 minutes of pure gameplay from the alpha.
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