Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War
Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War screenshot 1Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War screenshot 2
ActionSingleplayerMultiplayerFPSZombiesCold War

201 playing

Peak in the last 24 hours: 439

Peak in the last 7 days: 592

Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War Steam store

Game description

Black Ops Cold War, the direct sequel to Call of Duty®: Black Ops, will drop fans into the depths of the Cold War’s volatile geopolitical battle of the early 1980s.

Basic info

DeveloperTreyarch, Raven Software, High Moon Studios, Beenox, Activision Shanghai, Sledgehammer Games
PublisherActivision
PlatformsWindows
Steam DeckUnsupported
Release dateMar 8, 2023
Price

Prices by IsThereAnyDeal

Minimum specs

OSWindows® 10 64-bit (v.1803 or higher)
ProcessorIntel® Core™ i3-4340 or AMD FX-6300*
Memory8 GB
GraphicsNVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 670 / NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon™ HD 7950
Storage175 GB
steamyze

Review Analysis Score

Based on 423 reviews from the past 1 year

70.9/ 100
Bottom 30%

Steam rating: Mostly Positive (79%)

Review analysis summary (Reviewed Oct 25, 2026)

The campaign and zombies mode earn the most praise for Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War, which scores 70.9 across 423 analyzed reviews.

👍 Strengths

145 reviews praise the story, and some highlight branching choices and multiple endings in a solid campaign. Story & World ranks 427th of 1096. 74 say they enjoy it, with the most upvoted praising movement and gunplay that stayed fun for years, and others singling out the zombies mode as engaging. 22 like the visuals, and a few note that it still looks good on low settings. Multiplayer ranks 514th of 642.

👎 Where it falls short

Tech & Support appears in 34% of analyzed reviews and ranks 1248th of 1399. 49 reviews report crashes, texture glitches and startup bugs, and some say crashes on certain graphics cards have gone unfixed for years. 38 describe poor performance, such as constant stuttering, textures that never load in and long shader compiling. 33 feel the campaign is short at only a handful of hours, and a few would only buy it on sale. Pricing & Fairness ranks 1117th of 1399, and Content Volume ranks 828th of 1351.

Representative reviews Original reviews ↗

“story with branching choices and multiple endings” · 145 reviews
“peak CoD movement and gunplay, fun to play for years” · 74 reviews
“severe texture glitches, stuttering, crashes make game unplayable” · 49 reviews

How it holds up

−50+5

Controls, difficulty, progression and depth
Mentioned in 27% of reviews · Top 50% of the games we've analyzed

Strategy +2.43 · Depth of builds, tactics, and meaningful choices
Positive “balanced gunsmith system with clear role-locking and meaningful attachment tradeoffs” · 2 reviews

Progression 6% · Difficulty 5% · Onboarding 3% · Freedom 4% · Controls & feel 12%

Plot, characters and the world
Mentioned in 54% of reviews · Top 40% of the games we've analyzed

Story +3.05 · Plot, quests, writing, and the ending
Positive “story with branching choices and multiple endings” · 145 reviews

Characters 8% · World 15%

How much there is to do, variety and replay value
Mentioned in 28% of reviews · Bottom 40% of the games we've analyzed

Volume -1.08 · How much there is to play, including endgame, for the price
Negative “campaign is only 6-7 hours long” · 33 reviews
Positive “campaign rated 6-7/10, zombie mode 7-8/10” · 5 reviews

Variety 7% · Replayability 4%

Graphics, art style, music and sound
Mentioned in 24% of reviews · Bottom 20% of the games we've analyzed

Visuals +0.99 · Graphics, art style, and animation
Positive “runs great and looks great on low settings” · 22 reviews
Negative “persistent texture graphics problems make the game look horrible and unplayable” · 6 reviews

Audio 7%

Playing with others, the community and servers
Mentioned in 34% of reviews · Bottom 30% of the games we've analyzed

Playing together +1.52 · Fun of playing with friends, teammates, or rivals
Negative “multiplayer limited to only Knife Fight mode” · 13 reviews

Community 12% · Servers & Connection 11%

Pricing, cheaters, balance and matchmaking
Mentioned in 28% of reviews · Bottom 30% of the games we've analyzed

Pricing -0.24 · Whether the price, DLC and microtransactions are reasonable, and how much paying gives you an edge
Negative “full price is not recommended, buy on sale” · 19 reviews
Positive “no excessive skins, fair cosmetics” · 4 reviews

Anti-cheat 6% · Balance 4% · Matchmaking 8%

Bugs, performance and developer support
Mentioned in 34% of reviews · Bottom 20% of the games we've analyzed

Stability -0.62 · Crashes, freezes, save loss, and game-breaking bugs
Negative “severe texture glitches, stuttering, crashes make game unplayable” · 49 reviews

Performance 20% · Developer support 12%

Grey means too few reviews mention it to trust. — means almost no reviews mention it.

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