The release of the new Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is actually tomorrow, on November 13. Some players can already play, at least on Xbox One and Xbox Series X. And with a little trick, it will even work here in Germany.
How can players play now? The console version of Cold War has a local start time of 12:00 AM, meaning midnight on November 13. This means that in some countries, gamers can already play earlier.
In New Zealand, for example, Cold War has been playable since 12 PM in Germany (timezone: GMT+13). Players “on the other side of the world” can play already. Some players on reddit are already sharing pictures of their gameplay:
However, there is a trick that allows players in Germany to play earlier. Players refer to this as the “New Zealand method.”
“Live” in New Zealand and play earlier
Here’s how it works on Xbox: To play Cold War now, you should have already completed the preload that has been running for a few days or do it now. Then you just need to change your region. On Xbox One and Xbox Series X, it works like this:
- log in
- open the Guide with the Xbox button
- navigate to Settings → All settings → System → Language and region
- select “New Zealand” or another suitable country and choose “restart now”
According to reddit user downtoride, this should work smoothly in Germany as well. However, it is possible that you will need to perform another download of about 2.5 GB due to this.
A small warning at this point: Changing your region may result in playing on servers of that region. For New Zealand, this would mean a significantly high ping, likely making the gameplay less enjoyable.
Additionally, you may find that you cannot switch back to Germany for the next three months. If you do not wish to take this risk, you only need to wait a few more hours. In the meantime, check out the various multiplayer options in Cold War and find out which one suits you best.
Is this possible on PC and PlayStation too? Unfortunately not. The PC version of Cold War has a global release time of 6:00 AM German time, and the version for PlayStation 5 will only be released in Germany along with the console release on November 19.
For PlayStation 4, it theoretically works, but it is complicated. You would need to create a new account for a different region, which would also require a PS Plus subscription.
If you are still unsure whether you want to play the new CoD, you can find 6 things you should know before the launch of Cold War here on MeinMMO.
