A new leak suggests that Black Ops: Cold War is a direct sequel to Black Ops 1 and will be bringing Frank Woods along for the ride. Speculation has been swirling since the release of the ARG—pawn takes pawn—as to whether this new Black Ops game will be set in the distant past or in the modern era.
It appears that no matter which side you were on, you were half right. The leak suggests that the game will be taking place in the 1980s and will be a direct sequel of the OG Black Ops that we all know and love.
The Twitter handle @Modernwarzone was the first to report on the datamined information. We knew from the game Pawn takes Pawn that we were heading toward the end of the historical Cold War because the last videotape was from 1981. It seems obvious now, but just a week ago you were on the fringes of society if you believed that the game Cold War would be anything other than a reboot of the original.
If you haven't been paying attention (and we can't blame you if you haven't), there has been an alternate reality game going on to promote Black Ops: Cold War. This ARG is using Warzone to give players clues as to what is coming on Wednesday when we have a world-wide reveal for the game. There is a lot going on, but if you're interested, we suggest you start your journey down the rabbit hole with the Warzone bunker hunt finale.
Now that we (probably) know that this game will be a direct sequel to the original Black Ops, we have to wonder what that means for the rest of the Black Ops timeline. Does this mean that the events of Black Ops 2 are no longer canon? Are the developers going to try and tie everything together or are they going to retcon the whole franchise? It'll be interesting to see what happens on Wednesday, but whatever does happen, it's sure to be interesting.
Source: Twitter