History VideoGame / CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar

* EqualOpportunityEvil: Perseus as a faction is surprisingly diverse in ethnic background and gender in addition to its predominantly Russian members. Within its commanding circle alone are an American, two Iranians, a German, and [[spoiler:[[AndZoidberg Bell]], whose ethnicity and gender are left up to the player's decision]]. Its hirelings include a Norwegian, a Laotian, and a British.

* SadisticChoice: [[spoiler: Bell is forced to leave either Lazaar or Park behind to die. This is because the SPIE rig extraction is leaving in 10 seconds, and there's not enough time for a disoriented Bell to free both an injured/trapped Lazaar and Park while hooking them up to the SPIE rig. Wait too long, and both of them die.]]

* EyeScream: At one point, Bell gets a needle injection directly into their eye socket, with the camera directly in their point of view. The scene is appropriately squickly, as you can see the needle approaching then entering the iris.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: In the case that Bell is either female or non-binary. Female soldiers weren't a thing around the time of the Vietnam War. While there were indeed female reservist units and ranking personnel during that time, their roles were still mostly limited to being medical staff or communications officers, and none saw combat service in the frontline. The latter case remains a bit of a headache, as while there have been additions to regulations in 2018 that allowed transgender individuals to enlist as either their preferred or biological sex, there's still nothing said about non-binary cases. That being said, all of this can be handwaved as [[spoiler:part of the fake memories cooked up by Adler, himself an UnreliableNarrator, in order to convince Bell of their supposed history together]].

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: During the mission Desperate Measures, you can walk around the [=KGB=] building while carrying a dead body on your shoulder and nobody will have any reaction to it, either as Belikov or Bell. In fact, you can even carry Charkov's body (should you decide to kill him) around and into the bunker elevator, whereupon it will despawn when Zakhaev boards it.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: During the mission Desperate Measures, you can walk around the [=KGB=] building while carrying a dead body on your shoulder and nobody will have any reaction to it.

* LockpickingMinigame: At several points in the story campaign, the player character has to lockpick through closed doors in a curiously ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}''-style minigame, highlighting the clandestine atmosphere of the mission. The game is fairly simple, as the player must simply rotate the lockpick to find the right spots and the tumblers will trip on their own when enough pressure is applied.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: In the case that Bell is either female or non-binary. Female soldiers weren't a thing around the time of the Vietnam War. While there were indeed female reservist units and ranking personnel during that time, their roles were still mostly limited to being medical staff or communications officers, and none saw combat service in the frontline. The latter case remains a bit of a headache, as while there have been additions to regulations in 2018 that allowed transgender individuals to enlist as either their preferred or biological sex, there's still nothing said about non-binary cases. That being said, all of this can be handwaved as [[spoiler:part of the fake memories cooked up by Adler in order to convince Bell of their supposed history together]].

* LockpickingMinigame: At several points in the story campaign, the player character has to lockpick through closed doors, highlight the clandestine atmosphere of the mission. The game is fairly simple, as the player must simply rotate the lockpick to find the good position to break the lock and open the door.

* GodzillaThreshold: [[spoiler:Operation Greenlight, in which the US rig major European cities with neutron bombs to destroy them if the Soviets ever take them]].

** [[spoiler: Interestingly Subverted if Bell decided to turn against Adler, as Perseus actually welcomes them back with open arms and reinstated them as his right hand man/woman, even after they detonates the Greenlight nukes.]]

* RealityEnsues:
** Should Bell [[spoiler:betray their own team and face them in the bad ending, Mason and Woods, who were known for their PlotArmor in the previous ''Black Ops'' games, will go down just as easily as regular mooks the player has been killing through the game.]]
** Through dialogue with Sims, you can request all sorts of exotic gear including an attack helicopter. Despite his ability to procure said gear, Sims shoots down your request. Someone has to pay for all that hardware, and Adler doesn't want to pay for it while Bell doesn't have the money.
** During conversation with Woods and Mason, Bell can ask about the events of the original ''Black Ops''. While both of them give a few details, namely the parts known to everyone, like the fact they stoped Dragovich from releasing Nova Six onto American soil and their botched attempt to kill Fidel Castro, they stay fairly quiet about most of it since it's well, classified. It ''does'' lead to a moment of levity, as Woods then muses that he should kill Castro and chalk it up to "collateral damage" in service to the team's present mission, only for the trope to once more take effect as he notes that Hudson would throw the book at him for stepping out of line like that.
** Hesitating to make a decision in critical moments of the story will result in a NonstandardGameOver, because time doesn't magically freeze so the player can weigh the pros and cons of taking someone in alive or shooting them dead on the spot.

Alongside the campaign and multiplayer, [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies Zombies]] returns with a soft reboot of the Aether storyline, now known as Dark Aether. ''Cold War'' did not with its own Battle Royale gamemode, instead offering various bits of media into the previous year's iteration, ''Warzone''.

* ForegoneConclusion: Thanks to them appearing alive later in the timeline, such as during ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps2 Black Ops II]]'', Mason, Woods, Hudson, [[spoiler:Kravchenko]] and [[spoiler:Zakhaev]] all survive the game's events. [[spoiler: However, you can subvert this for the the former two in the ending in which you both side with Perseus and set up an ambush at Duga for Adler's team, where Mason and Woods are fought as the FinalBoss and killed.]]

* {{Interquel}}: ''Cold War'' takes place between the first and second ''Black Ops'' games, with the story being set about thirteen years after the events of the first game and five years before the events of the second game. That said, while plot elements from ''I'' carry over into this game, no elements of ''Cold War's'' story transition over into ''Black Ops II'', [[spoiler:with perhaps the few exceptions of chronologically revealing that Kravchenko lives due to his presence in that game]], and the fact that the Multiplayer map "Cartel" is the base of operations for Jose Luiz Menendez and his son Raul.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The description for the Pelington's "Recon Barrel" was derided as a {{Narm}} due to being both smoothbore and rifled. This type of barrel, that is mostly smoothbore with rifling at the final segment, exists in reality, and is known as paradox rifling, designed to allow shotguns to fire both scattershot and rifled slugs effectively. It is also used, in Russia for example, to allow certain civilian rifles [[LoopholeAbuse to be classified as shotguns]] and make them easier to legally obtain, an example of which is the [=VPO-209=], a civilian semi-auto only variant of the [=AKM=] chambered for the [=.366TKM=] cartridge, which features a paradox rifled barrel (In this case, smoothbore with the last 120 mm of it being rifled).

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