‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ event delivers a sweaty quest, new ‘Black Ops Cold War’ trailer

The first part asks players to get kills and loot to earn intel, which drops from opponents after they’re killed. After gathering up five pieces of intel, the next step is to find a key, which will be revealed on the player’s map.

Securing the key, which was found in the missile silo bunker near Verdansk’s Park location in the south of the map, triggers the next step: tracking down a cipher that is stashed in a loot box somewhere in a searchable area that is similarly marked on the map.

The cipher will reveal coordinates that correspond to a sector of the map. Players will need to search that grid square to “wield the weapon.” Successful searchers will discover revered “Black Ops” character Frank Woods standing, arm outstretched, with a Kar98K rifle. Picking it up unlocks a blueprint called “Bay of Pigs” that players will get to add to their “Warzone” loadouts.

The event continued from there, as a Russian-accented voice listed some coordinates before a new trailer for “Black Ops Cold War” starts to play. Players are dropped back into the map and told to run to the Stadium, which is marked with an ominous red nuclear symbol and a timer counting down. Air raid sirens blare while players scramble to the stadium, with jets strafing them along the way. Upon reaching the stadium, the remainder of the new “Cold War” trailer plays and gives way to an ad to preorder (which will give the benefit of open beta access to “Cold War” and a Woods skin that can be used in “Warzone”) before players are returned to the lobby.

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It has long been rumored that there will be some kind of nuclear event that will either alter or annihilate “Warzone’s” Verdansk map. The “Cold War” event seemed to suggest the introduction of the new game on Nov. 13 could bring that to fruition.

It was the first such event for “Warzone,” where previous major developments (like the Stadium roof being blown open) were introduced by cutscenes that played out whenever players began a new Warzone season. This was the first attempt by Activision to mimic the formula of “Fortnite,” which had drawn high praise for captivating events that occurred in the midst of playable battle royale rounds. “Fortnite” subsequently shifted to a more peaceful approach, in which players cannot be killed by opponents while watching events play out.

The event drew plenty of attention, with hundreds of thousands tuning into feeds from popular streamers on platforms like Twitch, YouTube and Facebook.

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