Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Beta Impressions: It’s a Mixed Bag

After being extended for an additional 24 hours as a fan-service, the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War beta has now officially come to an end. Between the alpha build, early access, and the open beta, I managed to rack up a respectable amount of playing time in order to give my impressions. A bit of backstory - I’ve been a dedicated Call of Duty fan since the days of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and have played every entry in the series since then. With credentials out of the way, let me get into my impressions of the Black Ops Cold War beta.

As for the beta itself, it provided access to a lot of content including Black Ops combat across traditional 6v6 modes, the higher player count 12v12 Combined Arms, and a brand-new 40-player mode, Fireteam: Dirty Bomb. There was also a variety of maps, weapons, field upgrades and scorestreaks to try out.

The new create-a-class system was also available which is an evolution of the Gunsmith system introduced in Modern Warfare 2019. The system lets you pick from multiple attachments in various attachment slots to tweak your weapon to your preference. Whilst we relied on YouTubers to test the attachments in order to get more detailed stats in last year’s Call of Duty, this time detailed weapon and attachment stats are included right there.

So, there was plenty to check out in order to get a detailed impression of what we can expect when the full game releases on 13th November. As aforementioned, on the whole, the gameplay experience was enjoyable. The beta was only marred by the rumoured inclusion of SBMM (skill-based matchmaking) which felt just as aggressive as Modern Warfare 2019. It resulted in the hashtag #RemoveSBMM to trend with even professional Call of Duty players sharing their grievances.

Besides that, Black Ops Cold War does undo a lot of what Modern Warfare 2019 got wrong in multiplayer. First of all, on the whole, I found myself enjoying the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer more than I ever did with Modern Warfare 2019. Frankly, the traditional multiplayer experience in Modern Warfare 2019 was a dumpster fire. Everything from aggressive SBMM, the introduction of interactable doors, loud footsteps, the designing of maps around “safe spaces” all contributed to a gameplay experience that promoted a cautious *cough* camping *cough* playstyle.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, on the other hand, seems to promote an antithetical “run and gun” playstyle more in line with previous Call of Duty titles. Movement is quicker, footsteps are quieter and maps, for the most part, follow a more traditional three-lane design. All of this promotes what I find to be a more enjoyable and fun experience in multiplayer modes.

For the sake of disclosure, and to make clear my bias, Treyarch (the main studio behind Black Ops Cold War) are my favourite Call of Duty studio. Treyarch entries promote a running and gunning playstyle more so than the other studios’ entries. Personally, I prefer playing that playstyle versus the more cautious style found in Modern Warfare 2019. That being said, perhaps it’s the troubled development or the movement to Infinity Ward’s new engine, but this is the least Treyarch-feeling title yet.

The Black Ops Cold War beta only gave us access to a slice of the multiplayer content but already I’m filled with more optimism and excitement than last year’s beta for Modern Warfare 2019 filled me with. There’s still a lot of content we’ll have to wait until full release to try but my early impressions lean towards the positive side. Though, I’d call it a mixed bag thus far due to aggressive SBMM still being in the game and the fact that this is the least Treyarch-like title yet. That’s the opinion of someone who’s played every Call of Duty game made by Treyarch yet.