Being an ever-evolving project that simply started as something that was made on the side back in the World at War days, Treyarch have gone above and beyond to correct and learn from their mistakes as the series progressed.
- The storyline initially started as something that came to us through little Easter eggs and audio logs, leaving us to piece together the majority of the story by ourselves. Starting with "Moon" in Black Ops, the story has been becoming more and more openly told, and in Black Ops III, we get numerous cinematics to help move the story along in a much more coherent manner.
- In World at War, Quick Revive was a useful perk when playing in a co-op, while in solo it was devoid of function and was pretty much a waste of points. Starting from Black Ops, the creators have changed it's mechanic specifically for solo. Instead of reviving others more quickly (since there is no one to revive in the first place in solo), you get more or less a second chance. When you go down, you get dual Pack-a-Punched starting handguns, which can clear the horde with explosive bullets, and you recover in a matter of seconds, keeping all your weapons. It also does not require power to be turned on to work and costs only 500 points. In order to balance it, however, the developers made it so that you could buy it only three times per game.
- The Buildables system, introduced in TranZit, initially proved frustrating since you could only carry around one part at a time. Later maps and Black Ops III onwards allowed the player to carry more than one part for more than one recipe (and III also allows any player to assemble the recipe on any available workbench once all pieces have been collected).
- The release of a 6-issue comic detailing the further adventures of Victis when they had been completely abandoned by Black Ops III.
- The release of the Zombies timeline finally cleared up pretty much every question about the lore left hanging after the end of Revelations.
- Black Ops 4 was announced to have three on-disc maps as opposed to the usual one or two, notably including the long-awaited remaster of Mob of the Dead. This was seen as a step in the right direction after The Giant was relegated to being a preorder bonus for III, and many fans have expressed beliefs that if it was on-disc content, the III season would've gotten off to a better start reception-wise since players could've had both the innovative yet divisive Shadows of Evil and the more traditional The Giant to try out.
- A major part of the poor reception towards Victis and their maps was due to their sudden replacing of the main cast we'd been following since the beginning. When Black Ops 4 introduced the Chaos Story Arc and it's characters, Treyarch made it clear from the get-go that the Chaos story would not replace the Aether story, which would continue parallel to the new story, saving the new cast and story from the They Changed It, Now It Sucks! reception that Victis suffered from.
- The problem of Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness that had been haunting the mode ever since World at War, is finally toned down in BO4, as starter weapons are slightly more powerful, can take attachments and can be upgraded multiple times in Pack-a-Punch. Cold War goes even further to remedy this with the introduction of the Tier system and the ability to pick whatever starting weapon you want in the Loadout menu, meaning that if you wanted to spawn in with an Assault Rifle or Light Machine Gun on Round 1, you can... but you'll have to upgrade its tiers for it to keep up with the increasing rounds.
- Given that a lot of the changes in Black Ops 4 were, to put it lightly, less than well-received, Treyarch went through a fair bit to remedy these changes coming into Cold War.
- The removal of Juggernog, Speed Cola and the classic perk system in Black Ops IV, while given credit for a bold attempt to innovate, was generally poorly received since the former in particular is an iconic, beloved perk. Right from the get-go, the marketing of Black Ops: Cold War prominently featured the return of Jug and other classic perks (in revamped machine designs) as a selling point.
- The reveal for Cold War also makes clear that despite the Sudden Downer Ending of IV, Primis and Ultimis did ultimately do some good and did create a peaceful universe free of zombies until the events of Cold War, meaning our beloved characters didn’t die in vain. To make up for this, Samantha is not only now a full-grown adult in this timeline, but she's also fully playable as of Season 2/Firebase Z as well. She can even be played in Multiplayer and Warzone!
- Barring the changes to the perk system, another much-maligned change in Black Ops 4 was in the form of the Mutations system, a change that was made to accommodate the removal of the four original perks of Zombies - Juggernog, Quick Revive, Speed Cola, and Double Tap - effectively threw difficulty (and really, the whole point of Zombies) out the window. It allowed players to choose their difficulty, which made them spawn in with more or less health (the former replacing Jug), implemented Self-Revives (replacing Quick Revive), made it so that you need to have all four perk slots equipped to reload faster (replacing Speed Cola), and to Pack-a-Punch your weapon up to five times to receive the effect of Double Tap. Cold War does away with this and returns to the old Perk system instead, with all but one of the original four perks (being Double Tap, sadly) making a return here.
- In Black Ops IV, adding to the above, you can choose whatever Specialist weapon you wanted to spawn in with, meaning that you were effectively given one of many Game Breakers to choose from before you even start the game which, in most maps, means that difficulty is non-existent as you can effectively pull these weapons out on a whim if you find yourself overwhelmed by Zombies. While Cold War does away with Specialist weapons entirely, the Field Upgrades are a suitable replacement as they're nowhere near as overpowered as the Specialist weapons of Black Ops 4, especially since, thanks to the Aetherium system, have to be upgraded first in order to actually be considered overpowered.
- Previous games since World at War only allowed for a player to buy up to four perks at once, leaving Perk Bottles and certain Easter egg objectives as the only legitimate means of obtaining more than four perks (Perkaholic aside in Black Ops III, that is). Cold War finally removes the perk limit of prior games, allowing players to buy every available perk in the map at the expense of each perk gradually increasing in price (e.g., the first perk is 2500 points, second is 3000, third is 3500, etc.)
- For better or worse, Easter eggs in Cold War are significantly easier for the average player to accomplish, with most of the objectives being laid out in plain sight (listening to Mission Control for clues also helps) instead of suffering through nasty cases of Guide Dang It! on top of the objectives themselves ranging from tedious to outright difficult, making some of these downright impossible to accomplish for a new Zombies player. This is also a return to form of the World at War and Black Ops Easter eggs, which were relatively straightforward to beat and didn't suffer from the Complexity Addiction of the Black Ops II-Black Ops IV Easter eggs. For reference, compare MrRoflWaffles' Gorod Krovi
no-nonsense Easter egg guide with that of Firebase Z's. - In most of the previous games, access to Pack-a-Punch ranged from relatively straightforward (Der Riese/The Giant, Kino, Ascension, etc.) to mind-numbingly tedious (e.g., TranZit, Zetsubou No Shima, Dead of the Night) to the point where it's possible to go an entire map without Pack-a-Punching altogether. Cold War goes back to the World at War/Black Ops approach of simply turning on the power (and in Die Maschine's case, simply finding the sole part in the Dark Aether to build it). It's especially easy in Cold War since it's actually highlighted in the HUD, meaning that you don't have to look up a guide to get set up for Pack-a-Punch at all.
- Were you by any chance a Zombies-only player in Black Ops 4 and wanted in on the extra content provided by the Battle Pass? Five words - you're shit out of luck. You could only progress through the tiers in Multiplayer or Blackout.note Not the case here in Cold War, where even a solo Zombies player can make significant progress towards Battle Pass tiers, having access to the content alongside everyone else.
- With the removal of the old and contentious Season Pass model of previous Call of Duty games in Modern Warfare (2019) that also means that any new and upcoming Zombies experiences (whether in the form of traditional round-based maps or new areas in Outbreak), are now accessible to everyone, meaning that you can play any map that you want with your friends without worrying if one of them as the DLC or not. Unfortunately, however, thanks in part to the game's Troubled Production (alongside other factors), the output for new maps is relatively slow - as of the end of Cold War's Year One, there are only four traditional Zombies experiences in Die Maschine, Firebase Z, Mauer der Toten and Forsaken.
- As of Season 3, Zombies-only players are also no longer excluded from any new weapons that they missed out on in previous seasons, as Treyarch added challenges within Zombies to unlock any of the previous weapons completely free of charge, most of which are relatively easy (if a bit lengthy, and at times tedious) to obtain even in Solo.
- While it hurts that Ultimis, Primis, and Victis are gone, there is some solace to be had in the fact that you can now pick your favorite playable character instead of being assigned to one of the four playable characters of previous maps at random. Yes, if you wanted to run around Firebase Z as Portnova wearing a bunny suit or 'tactical' goth attire, or if you want to play as Frank fucking Woods or even John Price in Zombies... you can. Though some of these have their own detractors. As mentioned above, Sam is also playable as an adult as of Season 2, so it's not all bad. Season 4 Reloaded even adds Weaver himself in his classic Black Ops 1 attire, heavier Russian accent included.
- One of the most common complaints about the Operators in Cold War - besides the fact that, well, they're not at the very least a dedicated crew like Primis or Victis - is that they're pretty much nobodies with very bland and forgettable line deliveries and just not being as fun as Ultimis in general. As far back as Season 2, much of the newer Operators (Naga, Jackal, and even Wraith in particular) have some more material to work with in Zombies, which, while not as amusing as Ultimis' antics, still provide some of the much-needed humor that Cold War is missing from previous games. This comes to a head with Weaver being introduced in Season 4 Reloaded and has some genuinely funny lines for most situations - killing zombies, finding perk machines, and just showing off a much goofier side to Weaver that we haven't seen before. (Assuming you don't mind spending the COD Points in doing so, anyway.)
- Return to the main YMMV page here.
