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Is Cold War a flop? What’s going on here?

Hopefully, people are burnt out by CoD like other Activision series that they have milked dry. I honestly haven’t liked the series since the first BO. That’s a decade.

As a COD fan I'm gonna tell you I don't care about Cold War. Not because the game is bad but because everyone's playing warzone. Who's gonna buy a fucking $70 game when you can play warzone for free? All of my friends who weren't COD players are now playing it because why not? It's free!!!

And don't get me wrong, I actually bought Cold War like two months ago, I even bought the Ultimate edition to play it on both, my PS4 and PS5. To this day I haven't even dare to launch the game. Again, why would anyone do it? If you buy Cold War the guns are available in warzone too.
 

Shmunter

Member
As a COD fan I'm gonna tell you I don't care about Cold War. Not because the game is bad but because everyone's playing warzone. Who's gonna buy a fucking $70 game when you can play warzone for free? All of my friends who weren't COD players are now playing it because why not? It's free!!!

And don't get me wrong, I actually bought Cold War like two months ago, I even bought the Ultimate edition to play it on both, my PS4 and PS5. To this day I haven't even dare to launch the game. Again, why would anyone do it? If you buy Cold War the guns are available in warzone too.
I need gunfight
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Ugh just got to rant. Been trying to play the campaign on Xbox series x and game keeps crashing... Look on internet and it says to turn off ray tracing, the point of next gen consoles. I do this and I still get booted out of the SINGLE PLAYER game for losing connection to a server...

At least the crashing doesn’t brick the Xbox like some reports on ps5 but this shit is just crazy. How many different ways can a game tell me DON’T PLAY ME.
 
Let me tell you that this years Call of Duty marketing was really weird. I didn't even know when the game actually released, because there was no hype or anything acknowledging the release. Amazon.de didn't even have physical copies of the game, and the cross-gen bundle was only available digitally as well.

That being sad, i enjoy this years CoD much more than MW2019. It kinda reminds me of BO2, because it doesn't have specialists and that kind of shit like the previous CODs. The gameplay is very basic, and i can understand why some people say its boring. But i enjoy it for being basic.

Zombies is also great, but the game needs more content right now. A lot of people are max rank already, and are waiting for Season 1 to start.

I think the game went under the radar among the next-gen consoles launch and the other games that launched in that time.
 
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spookyfish

Member
The campaign keeps crashing on Redlight/Greenlight for me (Series X). So far, I like it, but I can’t really play it.
 
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Daffy Duck

Member
The problem with Cold War is the overly aggressive Skill Based Matchmaking, it ruins the game and makes it 💯 not fun.

i only have a kd/r of 1.47 (the inflated one) and it’s incredible the level of people I play against.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
As a COD fan I'm gonna tell you I don't care about Cold War. Not because the game is bad but because everyone's playing warzone. Who's gonna buy a fucking $70 game when you can play warzone for free? All of my friends who weren't COD players are now playing it because why not? It's free!!!

And don't get me wrong, I actually bought Cold War like two months ago, I even bought the Ultimate edition to play it on both, my PS4 and PS5. To this day I haven't even dare to launch the game. Again, why would anyone do it? If you buy Cold War the guns are available in warzone too.

Well Warzone is just different to dom tdm etc. Warzone is just battle sadly.

And why buy ultimate for two platforms when's there's cross play?
 

Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
Not Call of Duty per se but Cold War in particular. The last COD MP I was this bored with was Infinite Warfare. The multiplayer is really not good this time and it shows. I have no urge to dive back in. The maps are horrible, the graphics on ps5 look worse than MW on PS4, the guns are boring and the game is overall a big step back from MW, imo.
Wow really? I love the way they've redone scorestreaks as it has made people actually go for objectives
 
The biggest reason why I’m not currently playing this game is because it crashes frequently on my Series X, and no other game had any issues. I don’t want to brick my console, so I’m waiting for Treyarch to fix this mess.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Meh, I really like the multiplayer. The first COD multi that I have really enjoyed since the original modern warfare in 2007. I stopped buying COD after modern warfare 2 on the 360/PS3, and only bought one COD last gen which was the new modern warfare in 2019 lol.

Although, the game is starting to get broken by the M16/AUG users. Some maps are just them guns now and if you move too much your dead. No run and gun possible. They need to take a long hard look at those guns imo. Anyway, I am taking a little break to play Fenyx rising, but I will comeback once the season 1 pass is up.

Best COD in over a decade for me
 
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Well Warzone is just different to dom tdm etc. Warzone is just battle sadly.

And why buy ultimate for two platforms when's there's cross play?
For that 4K graphics. I don't know, I bought it like 2 months ago when there wasn't that much information about BC or how things were gonna work., I think Iactually paid $80 for it to never use it.

I believe activision shot themselves in the foot, everyone's on warzone because like I said before, it is free. So now nobody cars about normal proper COD.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
that exclusive zombie mode in playstation cold war is pretty fun.. loot and stuff i love it
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I believe activision shot themselves in the foot, everyone's on warzone because like I said before, it is free. So now nobody cars about normal proper COD.

Activision successfully resisted the F2P model for a long time. It is psychologically hard to justify paying $70 for this when you have not only Warzone but all the other recent annual releases that the dedicated CoD player probably has.
 
it actually runs flawlessly on ps5 from the graphics to smooth connections but shipping with 8 maps the game is quickly starting to get pretty boring
 
Hopefully this thing goes on sale for Christmas. $40 is the most I can give to this even though I buy every COD every year. This one just looks so half assed...then again its Treyarch, wouldn't expect anything good from them.
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I would bite at $40, but a markdown that drastic a month after launch would be unprecedented for a Call of Duty game.
 
Call of Duty's post-CoD4 business model is flawed. They need to find a way to create a coherent underlying platform for each major Call of Duty brand, with a focus on long term retention, including committing to longer, more fleshed out campaigns. This is the business model Halo is trying for. Halo: Infinite is going to have F2P multiplayer with MTs, and is going to have a very sizeable campaign that gets content additions over time.

Most big MP titles are shifting towards iteration instead of clean break sequels. Warzone will get new content added indefinitely.

I feel torn because Call of Duty games are one of the only gaming experiences delivering rollercoaster singleplayer story-driven FPS design that isn't open world. Huge budget, slick presentation, memorable stories. With very few exceptions, pretty much nobody else is delivering this. Battlefield is trying, and I thought Hardline did some neat stuff, but Call of Duty has that market locked down just like Uncharted has the Indiana Jones TPS market locked down.

The problem is that the 3 year dev cycles are hell for the studios. The horror stories about how CoD in particular gets made is very disappointing. I'd rather see Call of Duty campaigns being made by teams who have the luxury of taking 4 years if their game really needs it, instead of being forced -- like Raven was -- to stitch a half-finished Vietnam Call of Duty game into a Black Ops title in something like 18 months. Black Ops Cold War is pretty damn good, but the stiches show, and if they'd had more time they could have made a longer game. Not too long, but meatier. A fleshed out campaign takes time. And Activision refuse to give the studios time. They keep trying to squeeze blood from that lucrative multiplayer stone by pushing out a full retail Call of Duty every single year. If the campaign isn't ready, they kill it. That's what happened to Black Ops 4. The broken, money-grubbing MP side of things HAD to ship to please the shareholders, so the campaign they'd put so much work into went up in smoke. It's so cynical. And people are getting tired of being sold half-baked products designed to fill coffers like clockwork in October-November every year.
 

Zimmy68

Member
I would bite at $40, but a markdown that drastic a month after launch would be unprecedented for a Call of Duty game.
Last year, MW was $40 around Black Friday. Guess what? I bought it. I also bought the PC version for my Dad, which was also $40.
The only discount this year was waiving their ridiculous $10 next gen fee.
I will buy it when it hits $40.
 
They are raking in billions in success on these games, but every year gamers on this forum act like they know better.

Sales of COD have always fluctuated, the MW games typically selling the best, pretty much everyone knew CW was not going to be as big.

And really it's going to do just fine, and especially with the Warzone integration they are putting in which also features content that entices WZ players to pick up the new title to get new unlocked goodies for use in WZ also. MW support is drying up now, all the focus being put into CW and Warzone now.
 
They are raking in billions in success on these games, but every year gamers on this forum act like they know better.

Sales of COD have always fluctuated, the MW games typically selling the best, pretty much everyone knew CW was not going to be as big.

And really it's going to do just fine, and especially with the Warzone integration they are putting in which also features content that entices WZ players to pick up the new title to get new unlocked goodies for use in WZ also. MW support is drying up now, all the focus being put into CW and Warzone now.
There are aspects of this business model that are not sustainable. Massive behind the scenes turmoil yet Activision demands that a game ship every single year, hell or high water. The entire affair came very close to imploding with Black Ops 4, and came very close to imploding with Cold War. This is after Black Ops 3's development turned into a horror show that was so bad, the developers were assured they'd never have to endure anything like that ever again. (They lied.) The devs need more time. The sub-series need stronger individual brand identity. Expectations of production values are out of control. Call of Duty has become this deeply cynical product that people just consume, burn out on, buy the next one, rinse, repeat.

Despite the idea that each Call of Duty series has its own fanbase and tone and gameplay ideas, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was not seen as a different kind of game aimed at a different audience. Instead, Modern Warfare fans mass-downvoted it. And Activision chickened out of making their own brand of Squadron 42 competitors. Black Ops Cold War is not viewed as a successor to Black Ops 2, which it is trying to be. Instead, it is contrasted against Modern Warfare, a completely different sub-series by a completely different studio. Infinity Ward wanted CoD 4 to be called Modern Warfare. A standalone brand. Activision insisted that all these games be Call of Duty: Small Subtitle. So most audiences approach these games with staunch preconceptions. They don't want to wait 3 years for a CoD game that suits their tastes to roll around again. They'll scream and moan at the "shit" Call of Duties that aren't their cup of team. It's super toxic and happens every year.

Call of Duty somehow has to be all things to all people while never deviating from a 36 month dev cycle and consistently selling 15-30 million copies a pop. Call of Duty's sales expectations are so high that most FPS games would be considered sub-series ending flops as a Call of Duty game. It is shocking that they managed to deliver Black Ops Cold War despite a mid-production reboot, COVID, and all that. Black Ops Cold War would be considered a massive success for most IPs. But not for Call of Duty. Call of Duty isn't allowed to be less popular, or more niche, or whatever.
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
They keep trying to squeeze blood from that lucrative multiplayer stone by pushing out a full retail Call of Duty every single year. If the campaign isn't ready, they kill it. That's what happened to Black Ops 4. The broken, money-grubbing MP side of things HAD to ship to please the shareholders, so the campaign they'd put so much work into went up in smoke. It's so cynical.

Did it ever leak out what actually happened to the lost Black Ops 4 campaign? Is it going to ever be repurposed and released in a different state?
 

Rbk_3

Member
The problem with Cold War is the overly aggressive Skill Based Matchmaking, it ruins the game and makes it 💯 not fun.

i only have a kd/r of 1.47 (the inflated one) and it’s incredible the level of people I play against.

Well, if SBMM was truly that strong wouldn't everyone basically have a 1.00?
 
Did it ever leak out what actually happened to the lost Black Ops 4 campaign? Is it going to ever be repurposed and released in a different state?

It went through a few different iterations. Including being this kind of Counter-Op thing where players would invade each other's games to interfere with missions. Treyarch tried pretty hard to experiment with the CoD formula, with the branching plot in Black Ops 2 being really bold for the time, and Black Ops 3 was originally an open world game before being rebooted into the Train Go Boom jumbled mess we got. Anyway, they had issues with playtesters disliking the WIP campaign design, and Black Ops 4 in general had problems with playtesters revolving against pretty much everything they did in both MP and SP. The insider leaks leading up to release were pretty alarming.

Eventually they were told they had 10 months to take all the work they had for BO4 and reshape it into a more conventional singleplayer, action-packed campaign. More explosions, more set pieces. This was coming along, and then Activision suddenly decided that the already buckling project needed to be moved from November to October to avoid RDR2. Ten months was already a really tight schedule, but suddenly they had nine months. And they just couldn't do it. I believe early in the release year they bought Raven in to hastily put together the Battle Royale mode, again, on a stupidly tight schedule, to plug the hole.

The part that must have really hurt the team's feelings was Activision and Treyarch management lying to the press and saying that Black Ops 4 never had a campaign, and things like that. It's such a damning story. Hugely troubled project runs into issues. Instead of giving the team MORE time to polish it up, the publisher thinks, "You know what? Let's give them LESS time." So little time they have to carve chunks out of the game. This isn't some long-in-development game with a publisher that can't afford another delay. This is pure greed. One of the most lucrative franchises on the planet valuing money over quality and any semblance of artistic merit. The entire corporate culture behind these games is so awful. The stuff about people being removed from the Black Ops credits so they wouldn't run longer than the Eminem song is also flabbergasting. Apparently Treyarch have a history of treating contractors like complete garbage.

Call of Duty needs to change to be healthy long term. It needs happy teams with sane schedules and good employee retention so that design lessons carry instead of being replaced by a revolving door of fresh faced hires. Modern AAA is plagued with talent bleed. It's depressing, really. The general slippage in certain aspects of game quality does come down to valuable experience picking up its bag and walking out the door. Senior devs leave the industry constantly. They just can't do it anymore. Contract devs are hired, gain valuable experience and insight into what makes a good CoD game, and then they're kicked to the curb because they're contractors, and the cycle repeats with the next title.
 

Allforce

Member
I would bite at $40, but a markdown that drastic a month after launch would be unprecedented for a Call of Duty game.

Like someone already said, MW2019 was $40 a few weeks after launch on Black Friday. Cold War dropped to 49.99 at most retailers yesterday, not a permanent drop but definitely a planned short term price drop.

You'll see this thing at 39.99 or less somewhere by Christmas.

I honestly only want it to just to unlock some more operators for Warzone lol.

Edit: And there it is. $39.99 on Battle.Net
 
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Delt31

Member
Flop? For me, this is the best COD in a long time. MW was good but this game feels more old school to me. Love how smooth it is in 120 and the gunplay is just SO satisfying.

I LOVE this game. TDM only btw. Just can’t get enough. Maps are so much fun. Almost every one is a winner. Instant classics in there.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
I've been playing free Cold War multiplayer the last couple of days just to give this title a chance (to find out if I'm missing something), and the feeling of going back to something inferior without reason is almost depressing. I don't understand the fucked up contracts IW have when they are basically forced to "abandon" the superior and most popular game.
 
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can someone explain why there are no Non hardcore TDM mode? Like my match search only shows hardcore game modes(Friendly fire on shit). WTF is wrong with this game :messenger_angry:
 
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