Since it's launch on November 13, Black Ops Cold War has seen a large amount of controversy surrounding the volume of content in the game, with many players believing it's not enough to sustain the game's popularity. An update in late November brought with it the release of the fan-favorite map Nuketown into Black Ops Cold War — remade with a 1984 Cold War setting.
The next major content offering for the title — season one — is set to bring with it the integration of Black Ops Cold War mechanics into the Warzone battle royale on December 10. However, a leak from ModernWarzone earlier in the week stated Black Ops Cold War and Warzone 's season one content release was set to be delayed by a week and that appears to have now been confirmed by the official Call of Duty channels...
NEWS
In a shocking move by Treyarch and Activison, Black Ops Cold War 's Season 1 content release along with its integration — originally due to arrive on December 10 — will now arrive a week later on December 16. A post on the Call of Duty blog has confirmed the delay along with the first specific details on the content set to be delivered to players.
The blog states that the new season is set to deliver an “ Unprecedented Amount of Free Warzone Content” and an “Undeniable Offering of Black Ops Cold War Content”.
In terms of Black Ops Cold War content, the update will deliver plenty new content for both multiplayer and zombies as is detailed in a post in the Call of Duty blog :
Prepare for an incredible amount of free content in Black Ops Cold War , including new Multiplayer maps, new and fan-favorite 6v6 modes and playlists, the return of 2v2 Gunfight with four new maps, and a massive new Fireteam map. This offering includes a battle through a sprawling luxury complex within the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. That’s right: the legendary Call of Duty: Black Ops II 6v6 map known as Raid will be ready to play in Black Ops Cold War at Season One launch.
Make room on your Gunsmith table for free-to-acquire weapons and prepare for new Zombies modes, Season Challenges, and the full cross-title launch of the Seasonal Prestige system, with up to 1,000 Season Levels to progress through!
Meanwhile, the hit Warzone battle royale mode will also deliver a slew of new content with the blog again, giving further details on what players should expect from the update:
Battle Royale is set to go beyond Verdansk: prepare to drop into a new Warzone map and mode at launch. Warzone ’s arsenal gets even bigger with over 30 Black Ops Cold War base weapons, as well as Blueprint variants! Also, make sure you’re ready to face down fellow prisoners of Warzone in a new Gulag experience.
By way of apology for the delay and to thank players for their patience, Treyarch will also be delivering a selection of surprises for fans over the next week including a Double XP and Double Weapon XP weekend running from 10am PT on Saturday, December 12 until the season launches on Wednesday, December 16.
In addition to this, players will be rewarded with two bundles of free cosmetic items, unlocked by logging in at any point between 10am PT December 8 and 11pm PT December 15.
The “Field Research” bundle will offer four Epic items — an operator skin for Park, an SMG weapon blueprint skin, a reticle and a calling card — along with a rare weapon charm. The second bundle, “Certified”, will contain three Epic items — an operator skin for Garcia, a reticle, and a weapon charm — as well as a rare assault rifle weapon blueprint skin.
In addition to the main season updates — coming December 15 to Black Ops Cold War and December 16 to Warzone — an update to Black Ops Cold War will arrive on December 8 with a selection of bug fixes and quality of life improvements. While the initial update will go live to Black Ops Cold War on December 15, the season content won't launch until the Warzone update arrives.
WHAT THIS MEANS
It's unclear as of now the reasons behind the delay of a major Call of Duty update, as this is extremely out of character for the company. However, a likely candidate for why this could have happened is the clash of the original update release date of December 10 with the release of Cyberpunk 2077 on the same day. A major release on the scale of Cyberpunk would be likely to draw a lot of attention away from a new content release. A similar move was made by Treyarch in 2018 when Black Ops 4' s release was moved out of the traditional Call of Duty release slot of November for the first time ever to release in October, to avoid competition with the release of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 .
It'll be exciting for many fans to see the huge volume of content set to arrive with the update for all the major Call of Duty modes, with leaks stating new maps and modes will also arrive for last years Call of Duty title, Modern Warfare , on the same day. Season 1 will be bringing with it the return of many fan-favorite maps and modes, including the 2v2 Gunfight mode from Modern Warfare and the Raid 6v6 multiplayer map from Black Ops 2.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC. The Warzone battle royale can be downloaded on all the same platforms as a free-to-play title.