We Finally Know What The Next Call Of Duty Game Is

It's official: the next entry in the Call of Duty franchise appears to be taking players back in time. This week finally brought the long-awaited confirmation of Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War.

This teaser reveal for Cold War was preceded by months of hints regarding the true nature of the next Call of Duty game. Among those teases was the appearance of a listing for The Red Door on the Microsoft Store. While The Red Door appeared to be an unrelated shooter from Activision, players did some digging and began uncovering connections to the Call of Duty franchise. For instance, one data miner found several strings of code inside the unplayable files for The Red Door that referred to game modes regularly seen in Call of Duty. While the exact significance of The Red Door has yet to be revealed, it is worth noting that the listing has not been pulled or commented on by Activision. 

Even more exciting for fans was an alternate reality game, or ARG, that tasked players with uncovering some of the mysteries of the new game. Some streamers and gaming journalists were sent locked black crates in the mail. These crates came with instructions to text a specific phone number on Aug. 10. At that time, these lucky recipients would be given the combination to the lock on the crate. According to a Twitter post from Polygon's Russ Frushtick, the crates contained vintage slide projectors, of all things. The accompanying paperwork inside the crate featured some odd codes, while the slides displayed more cryptic clues and apparent peeks at game maps.

As explained by 100 Thieves' NoahJ456, hardcore fans recognized these map slides as depicting locations from Black Ops 4. Some of these fans then placed these slides over the corresponding in-game maps, which revealed phrases related to a Russian game of chess. Confused yet?

This eventually led to a mysterious website, PawnTakesPawn, which displayed seemingly random numbers on 20-minute loops. Using some of those numbers, players were able to find coordinates and a key code to open a bunker in Call of Duty: Warzone. Pretty much ever since the launch of Call of Duty: Warzone, players have been trying to figure out the purpose of these bunkers. Even after the bunkers started to open, there were still plenty of mysteries surrounding them. According to a post from Reddit user Uli909, the bunker in question contained a missile, which certainly doesn't bode well for the current map. 

But that's not all. As explained further by NoahJ456, players also discovered that some of the numbers from PawnTakesPawn led them to a website hosting the Black Ops — Cold War teaser trailer. That trailer has since been added to YouTube.

The teaser doesn't show anything in terms of actual gameplay, but the story hints alone should be exciting for fans. It seems that Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War, much like the title suggests, will be leaning much more heavily into real historical events for its setting. The teaser features a real life speech from KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov describing the Soviet Union's M.O. when it came to destabilizing foreign powers. Through text that appears on the screen, players are made aware of various conspiracy theories from throughout the years. Judging from the information in the teaser, players may expect to play as or face off against a soldier codenamed "Perseus." According to the teaser, Perseus' mission was to find a way to "subvert the U.S. to ensure Soviet dominance in the arms race." It's unclear if Perseus is the main character or an antagonist of sorts, which is kind of thrilling. What if Black Ops — Cold War gives players the opportunity to see the Cold War from both sides?

According to the trailer, an official reveal of the game will occur on Aug. 26. This is backed up by the YouTube description of the teaser video, which simply reads, "Know your history or be doomed to repeat it. Verdansk. August 26."

This would seem to suggest that whatever the next reveal is, it will be occurring within the Verdansk map of Call of Duty: Warzone. Maybe those warheads in the bunker will become active, or some other kind of catastrophic event will change the Warzone map yet again as the marketing ramps up for Call of Duty: Black Ops — Cold War.

Whatever the case, there's no denying that the build up to this reveal has been incredibly engaging. The sheer amount of effort that has gone into this from both the game's marketing team and the fan community is staggering. Hopefully the big reveal on Aug. 26 will live up to the hype.