Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

The PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was released on November 13, 2020, through the Battle.net launcher, and offers the same content as the console releases - a branching campaign set in 1981, in which a CIA agent, alongside Alex Mason, Frank Woods, and Jason Hudson, searches for the Soviet agent Perseus, a full-fledged multiplayer, and a Zombies mode with the Die Maschine map. The game was made by Treyarch in collaboration with Raven Software.

Compared to consoles, the PC version offers the highest technical ceiling: support for unlimited frame rate, a wide range of graphics settings, resolutions above 4K and ultrawide monitors, ray-traced shadows on cards supporting ray tracing, and an optional high-resolution texture pack that players could install separately depending on their storage size. The game also supports crossplay and cross-generation progress sharing with the console versions via a linked Activision account, and, like the next-gen consoles, handles mass modes such as Fireteam or Combined Arms with a full player count. Controls can be customized for keyboard and mouse, but the game also offers full gamepad support for players who prefer a controller. The game does not offer official tools for creating custom content or a map editor.

Just like the console releases, the PC version also linked up with the free battle royale mode Warzone shortly after launch. Thanks to the higher performance of PC builds, players on this platform could achieve significantly higher frame rates than on consoles, which represented a noticeable advantage especially in competitive multiplayer. In terms of content and story, the PC version is completely identical to the other editions of the game.

Like the other versions, Black Ops Cold War loosely continues the story of the first Black Ops from 2010 and its plot around the MKUltra program. In addition, thanks to a mouse with a high-resolution sensor, PC players could achieve more precise aiming than with a controller, which was long seen as an advantage of this platform over consoles in competitive multiplayer.

Why play: For fans of the MKUltra plot from the first Black Ops, as well as for competitive players who want to take advantage of mouse aiming precision over a controller, the PC version has long been the more advantageous choice in multiplayer.