Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War developer Treyarch has said it's "time to shake the meta up" in advance of a significant gameplay tuning pass.
The launch of Season One, set for 16th December, includes gameplay changes for weapons and more, Treyarch game designer Tony Flame confirmed on Twitter.
"After all, it's been nearly a month since launch," he said. "Time to shake the meta up for the holidays."
Activision has announced everything coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in season one.
Season one, which begins on 16th December, adds three new operators: the already-announced Stitch, Bulldozer, and Zeyna.
There are five new weapons: the MAC 10 SMG (launch week), the Groza assault rifle (launch week), the Streetsweeper shotgun (in season), the Sledgehammer melee (in season), and the Wakizashi melee (in season).
Call of Duty: Warzone looks set to expand soon with the addition of Rebirth Island.
As image doing the rounds within the Call of Duty datamining community shows the logos for Warzone and Rebirth Island on top of an aerial shot of the island itself.
In its roadmap for Warzone published last month, Activision teased a "classified Warzone experience" set to launch when Season 1 of Call of Duty: Black Ops - and its integration with Warzone - begins on 10th December.
Treyarch has tweaked Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War so players level up weapons faster.
The developer released a patch for the shooter this evening just as Black Ops Cold War's double XP and double weapon XP event came to a close.
"Coming out of last week's 2XP + 2WXP event, we've made some additional tuning changes to global Weapon XP earn rates across the board," Treyarch said in the patch notes.
One of the more memorable campaign levels from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a largely stealth mission through East Berlin, set in February 1981.
In this level, you alongside your crack team of CIA operatives infiltrate the German Democratic Republic via train, and it's here you get a sense of developer Raven's attention to detail: there are era-appropriate ads all over the carriage, including an old-school FILA logo and a poster for an old camera, and a man reading a newspaper with a headline about then American president Ronald Reagan.
And there, on the wall by the carriage door, is a Doritos advert.
Call of Duty: Warzone will stick with its existing engine for the upcoming Black Ops Cold War integration, an Activision employee has said.
In a post on ResetEra, a user called ShutterMunster, who is verified on the site as an Activision art lead, stepped in to say "there will not be an engine shift for Warzone". Eurogamer has asked Activision for comment.
There had been speculation about whether Warzone would move over to the engine powering Black Ops Cold War after Activision confirmed Cold War's integration with Warzone kicks off in December 2020.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on PC finally gets mode-specific uninstall options on PC - just days before the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta launches on the platform.
An update due out today will make the change, according to a tweet from Infinity Ward production director Paul Haile.
Currently, only the console versions of Modern Warfare allows you to uninstall certain modes, such as the campaign, multiplayer, spec ops and survival. This is essential, really, given Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone together have ballooned to over 200GB. Here's how it looks on PS4:
If you've been playing the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta, which was in open form over the weekend on PlayStation 4, then you'll probably have an opinion on the new Cartel multiplayer map.
Cartel is set in the jungles of Nicaragua where, as you'd expect from the name of the map, a remote cartel compound is housed.
As people have got stuck into Cartel over the weekend, one aspect of its design has sparked an interesting debate: the bushes.
"SBMM" - aka skill-based matchmaking was a trending phrase on Twitter this week as the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta went live and players resorted to killing themselves over and over again in a bid to improve their experience with the game.
SBMM relates to the way matchmaking works in video games, and it has become a hot topic within the Call of Duty community in recent years. The idea is by deliberately gaining a negative kill / death ratio in matches, Black Ops Cold War's SBMM will essentially demote you down its skill ranking, and then matchmake you with players more your level (or you'll do better against).
The issue flared up with the release of the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War alpha, which saw players complain its SBMM was too harsh and lobbies were "like COD League Finals".
If you, like me, have been playing the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War alpha on PlayStation 4 this weekend, you may have noticed sniper rifles are pretty handy.
I spent most of yesterday evening playing the alpha, getting a feel for the multiplayer portion of the game, its weapons and potential loadouts, and it quickly became apparent that snipers were the go-to weapon.
They're super powerful, as you'd expect, but also have an extremely quick aim down sights (ADS) speed - much faster than the kind of sniper rifle ADS speed we're used to from recent games in the series.