In Call of Duty: Black Ops, Treyarch fell down a rabbit hole and never came out

November 9, 2025 is the 15th anniversary of the release of “Call of Duty: Black Ops”. Below, we'll take a look at how it differs from previous Call of Duty events and defines developer Treyarch's contribution to the series' future.

In the early days of Activision’s Call of Duty series, Treyarch Another Call of Duty studio. Comparisons between Treyarch and series creator Infinity Ward are common on internet forums, with fans and Even some industry figures It’s the former who are the team’s “B team.”

Treyarch 2006 games call of duty 3 was an excellent World War II shooter, but the following year it was quickly overshadowed by Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare – a thoroughly revolutionary game that set a new standard for first-person shooters and online multiplayer modes. Treyarch follow-up game, 2008 war worldtaking this series back in time, and most of the gameplay is like a World War II remake of “Modern Warfare.”

In 2010, Treyarch made a drastic shift with Call of Duty: Black Ops, steering the studio, and the franchise as a whole, in a completely new direction.

Call of Duty enters a new period of history for the first time, and the Cold War era offers Treyarch several opportunities to explore themes and tell stories. Rather than telling another on-the-ground story about soldiers in the trenches, Treyarch chose to craft a complex spy thriller that broke with the conventions established by previous games in the series.

Unlike Call of Duty's typically passive and silent protagonists, Black Ops' Alex Mason voices the entire story, and the campaign is entirely centered around his personal journey. Mason faced off against Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy – unusual for a series at the time in that it avoided depicting real-life historical figures.

Much of Black Ops (technically a sequel to World at War)'s non-linear story focuses on Mason trying to piece together his scattered memories, the result of brainwashing by the game's villains. We see his twisted perspective on events, putting us in the role of an unreliable protagonist through whose eyes it's unclear what's real and what's not – for the first time in Call of Duty we as players question the reality we see through the protagonist's eyes.

As GameSpot's black ops review The description says, “The fuzzy edges of your consciousness hide information that must come to light, and the erratic visuals and eerie audio echoes that accompany your interrogations sometimes seep into your mission memories, creating a tone of great uncertainty that plays out in surprising and satisfying ways.”

The narrative switches between characters, taking us through sequences ranging from a bloody prison break from a gulag to a brutal mission in the jungles of Vietnam, weaving an intricate story of paranoia and political intrigue. The plot is full of twists and turns, and all the clues finally converge into an explosive ending.

“Black Ops” inherits the emotion of the campaigns of Michael Bay's action films “Infinity Ward” and “Modern Warfare” while incorporating it into the mold of political thrillers such as “The Manchurian Candidate”. Previous Call of Duty games have taken clear visual inspiration from World War II films like Saving Private Ryan and The Enemy. Likewise, Black Ops takes notes from Vietnam War films, including Apocalypse Now and Platoon, A sequence is essentially a boost famous Russian roulette scene from The Deer Hunter.

But while Black Ops incorporates its setting and real-life characters, it lacks a meaningful message about Cold War politics. It offers no criticism or insight into the powerful men pulling the strings – John F. Kennedy was simply the man who gave you a mission, while Fidel Castro was the “bad guy” who needed to be killed. The story doesn’t deal with the atrocities of the Vietnam War—rather, the Vietnam setting is just another opportunity for you to photograph the nameless victims.

The event's story, written by “Dark Knight” screenwriter David S. Goyer, is filled with gratuitous violence, over-the-top slow-motion, and silly clichés like the characters. Dramatically wear sunglasses indoors before an electric guitar riff. It's ultimately a thrilling 1960s-themed theme park ride that uses historical figures as its animatronics to sell the illusion.

Even so, the Black Ops campaign is a bold departure for Treyarch and the Call of Duty series. While Infinity Ward and Call of Duty studio Sledgehammer Games have jumped around different sub-series and stories in the series, Treyarch has stuck to the Black Ops storyline ever since, launching its seventh Black Ops title this month.

In subsequent Black Ops games, Treyarch increased the twists and complexity of the narrative. Black Ops 3 is particularly troubledtells an impenetrable story involving cybernetic neural interfaces and nanotechnology. With the launch of Black Ops Cold War in 2020, the sub-series returned to its roots, featuring a back-to-basics espionage thriller involving brainwashing and a brief appearance by Ronald Reagan. Now, the series is heading back to the distant future with the launch of Black Ops 7 Ad campaign filled with psychedelic, mind-bending visuals.

I haven't even gotten around to Black Ops' multiplayer mode, which is packed with fun new features like the top-down Dead Ops Arcade inspired by Smash TV, the series' first theater mode, customizable badges and weapons (a novelty that will disappear in future releases), and compelling stakes matches and modes like One in the Chamber and Gun Game.

Treyarch has been based on Infinity Ward's work, while other Call of Duty studios have drawn inspiration from Treyarch's work on Black Ops. By expanding World at War's Zombies mode in Black Ops, Treyarch established the Easter egg-filled co-op mode as an important third pillar of Call of Duty moving forward, even being included in non-Treyarch titles like Infinite Warfare, WWII, and Modern Warfare 3. In Infinity War, Infinity Ward actually utilized the wall-running and boost-jumping movement systems from Black Ops 3, a rare case of role reversal. Infinity Ward and Treyarch.

It's worth noting that Black Ops 1 was released during a tumultuous time for the series, between the release of 2009's blockbuster Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, Activision fires Infinity Ward studio headleading to lawsuits and employees leaving the studio. Infinity Ward will take years to rebuild, requiring Sledgehammer Games for Modern Warfare 3 and People at Activision studio Neversoft While working on Call of Duty: Ghosts. Whether Treyarch intended it or not, the studio proved with Black Ops that it can fill the void left by Infinity Ward and that it's also capable of delivering a game-changing entry in the series.

Call of Duty: Black Ops will be remembered for giving us Nuketown, Numbers, and Frank Woods, all of which are permanently etched in the larger history of Call of Duty. But most of all, Black Ops 1 should be appreciated for being more difficult than any subsequent Call of Duty game.