For those unfamiliar with the term ARG, it stands for alternate reality game. The Call of Duty ARG was Activision’s way to unveil the next Call of Duty game: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War . The game was developed by Treyarch, and the full trailer for the game will be released Aug. 26. Usually game announcements are a pretty big deal and a lot of fun, but the reveal for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War seemed way too drawn out.
A week is a long time for any event. Music festivals don’t run this long. Esports events are either extended into tournaments or take place over a weekend. A birthday party only lasts a day unless you’re one of those people that insists on making it an obnoxiously long affair. Call of Duty’s alternate reality game spanned the course of a week and a half, with streamers receiving packages containing a slide projector, and slides to use with the projector. To Activision’s credit, that’s super cool. But the week and a half of Easter Egg hunting was both tedious and exhausting.
HOW WE SOLVED THE HARDEST EASTER EGG OF ALL TIME!
This is how we found the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War trailer. pic.twitter.com/udJJmG3xYA
— NoahJ456 (@NoahJ456) August 19, 2020
The main idea with Easter Eggs and ARGs is for players to enjoy them. While the clues and pieces were always out for the players to figure out, it seems Warzone players had to vicariously live through streamers and YouTubers to access secret parts of the map in the Call of Duty ARG. If there was a lottery system for regular players to get the package, that could’ve been a huge marketing boost to bring attention to the game.
Call of Duty: Warzone‘s daily information leak put call-outs on social media for Activision to announce what players had been anticipating for months: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. The writing has been on the wall for seasons, and it’s been a pretty poorly kept secret. Even the language of Warzone being a continuous mainstay for the franchise left little doubt to the fate of Verdansk in the long run.
At least the little tidbits of information released over the seasons have always shown their intentions the whole time. Bunker 11 was probably the earliest red flag players got, seeing a nuke being assembled.
Pawntakespawn has been a pretty cool touch, as a unique site run by Activision showing tapes of historical speeches and events back in the Cold War days. Had this been condensed or partnered up on a marathon of a stream, the reveal may have been a lot easier to digest. The payout in the actual game was also both exciting and lackluster, as a fully assembled and likely armed nuke can now be found near Park. One could assume that it’s one of many nukes located in Verdansk, as Activision seems ready to pull the plug on this iteration of Warzone.
MISSILE in the warzone map! The code to the bunker close to park was revealed today showing what looks like a missile there! The code is 60274513, and you can try entering there for yourselves! The explanation to how the code was found is in the comments 🙂 from CODWarzone
While Verdansk has been fun and has run its course, it almost feels like there’s so much more to unearth in this map. There is unused potential in certain locations, and some map alterations could’ve given more variety to the game than the usual game mode variant.
Here’s to hoping Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War can bring a little more flavor to the game.
