CoD: Black Ops Cold War is coming out tomorrow, November 13, and just a day before its release, the developers discovered why exactly the game is set in the cold 80s. Treyarch felt the urge to go back in time. As for them, it’s the best fitting option. Black Ops Cold War is also a sequel to its predecessor, which further simplifies the choice.
For a Call of Duty title, it’s no stranger to seeing the game to get involved in turbulent politics, as back in 1980, those activities were considered quite interesting. Hence, it’s one of the most purposeful choices approached by Treyarch.
In an interview with IGN, Dan Vondrak, Senior creative director at Raven Software, has discovered why this cold era is the designated timeline for Black Ops Cold War.
We love the Cold War for a few reasons, it was really the intrigue that the history of the Cold War brings. We dug into recently declassified documents and brought these real-life stories into our fictional tale.
The very first Black Ops took place in the Cold War of the 1960s, it had “deniable operations”, secret ops that the government didn’t want you to find out. We want players to feel that same feeling as the first game, while making a whole new setting in the 1980s instead. It was such an immersive way for us to tell this story with a lot of twists and turns.
Furthermore, the threat of nuclear war emerging back in the 1980s is also among the reasons Black Ops Cold War has found this period as its home. The nuclear arms race is undoubtedly quite intriguing, even though it’s never desired, and going back in time would help Treyarch describe their fictional story better.
Being a sequel to the first Black Ops game, it was also mandatory to include new and returning characters to the game so that both new and old fans can enjoy playing the game.
