Call of Duty: Cold War announced in trailer with a real Soviet defector

Jonathan Lee
Updated ·2 min read

Activision has confirmed the upcoming release of Call of Duty: Cold War, the latest entry into the Call of Duty franchise.

For weeks, hardcore Call of Duty fans have played an elaborate alternate reality game to unveil the name of the next title. It started when some streamers found codes and film slides in crates sent from Activision which then led to a sprawling internet search. YouTuber and streamer NoahJ456 made a short video chronicling how streamers and fans banded together to find the trailer.

All of that eventually led to the address of an unlisted video on the official Call of Duty YouTube channel. It turned out to be a teaser for the next Call of Duty game featuring archival footage with Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov and a confirmation of the game’s title, Call of Duty: Cold War.

Cold War will be part of the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, which is distinct from mainline Modern Warfare titles made primarily by Infinity Ward. The Black Ops games, which are developed by Treyarch, draw heavily upon Cold War themes of spies, subterfuge and power struggles behind closed doors.

It’s also more directly inspired by historical events than Modern Warfare. Whereas all the characters in Modern Warfare are fictional, President John F. Kennedy and Secretary Robert McNamara were prominent figures in the first Black Ops campaign.

The Call of Duty: Cold War teaser featuring archival footage of Bezmenov is yet another nod to Black Ops’ interest in misinformation and shadowy wars. Before defecting to Canada, Bezmenov was a journalist in the USSR and an informant for the KGB.

More details on Call of Duty: Cold War will be officially unveiled on August 26.

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