Set in 1981, Black Ops Cold War's single-player story follows CIA operative Russell Adler and his team of agents as they hunt down a Soviet spy named Perseus.

Reviewers responded mostly positively to the single-player campaign and Zombies, but were mixed on the game's multiplayer component, with some deeming it to be weaker than the one featured in its direct predecessor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019).

As with previous Call of Duty games, Black Ops Cold War is a first-person shooter, featuring a single-player campaign, a multiplayer component, and the cooperative Zombies mode.

[17] Onslaught puts two players on a selection of maps from Black Ops Cold War's multiplayer, tasking them to defend areas grounded off by a "Dark Aether" orb, which must be powered by killing zombies.

[19] In January 1981, CIA operatives Russell Adler (Bruce Thomas), Alex Mason (Chris Payne Gilbert), and Frank Woods (Damon Victor Allen) are sent to Amsterdam to target Qasim Javadi (Farshad Farahat) and Arash Kadivar (Navid Negahban) for their roles in the Iran hostage crisis.

After being briefed of his threat by Adler and Jason Hudson (Piotr Michael), U.S. President Ronald Reagan (Jeff Bergman) authorizes a black operation team to neutralize Perseus.

In January 1984, a Perseus cell, led by Vikhor "Stitch" Kuzmin (Chris Parson), raids a CIA safe house in West Berlin in order to gain intel on Adler.

[23]: 2:35-5:33 In June 1984, two Perseus operatives, Freya "Wraith" Helvig and Roman "Knight" Gray (Mark Sheppard), infiltrate a secret military base at Mount Yamantau and retrieve data related to Dragovich's numbers program, which Stitch plans to use in order to create more sleeper agents across the nation.

[23]: 8:38-11:29 In July 1984, Woods leads a response team, accompanied by Colton "Stryker" Greenfield (Christian Rummel), to the ECHELON Listening Station in Teufelsburg, where they attempt to apprehend Perseus operative Kaori "Kitsune" Tanaka (Erika Ishii).

Afterwards, Hudson meets with Woods in private and reveals an inconsistency in Adler's statement about the data recorder from the Algeria satellite crash site, as well as his recent unmonitored activities in Verdansk.

[d] During World War II, the Nazis, under the supervision of Dr. Ulrich Vogel (Michael Gough), establish a nuclear research program—dubbed "Projekt Endstation"—in Morasko, Poland, with the goal of creating atomic armaments.

A test of the program's experimental particle accelerator, however, causes an interdimensional breach to occur, creating a link between Earth and the "Dark Aether" dimension and unleashing hordes of zombies.

Decades later, in 1983, a newly established joint KGB-Spetsnaz research team named "Omega Group" uncovers footage of the Endstation facility from Soviet archives, and travels to Morasko to reactivate the particle accelerator.

In November 1983, rogue BND operative Samantha Maxis (Julie Nathanson) contacts CIA Special Officer Grigori Weaver (Gene Farber), informing him of Omega Group's activity in Poland.

Over the next several months, Requiem's strike team is deployed in multiple Ural regions in order to eliminate undead targets, capture specimen and commence further research on the mysterious "Aetherium" element.

Amidst the operations at the Ural Mountains, both Requiem and Omega come into contact with Kazimir Zykov (Andrew Morgado), a Soviet engineer who was originally sent to the Endstation facility in 1945 to shut it down, and has been trapped inside the Dark Aether since then.

Zykov, who wishes to escape the dimension, has attempted to reach out to the real world, giving both Requiem and Omega warnings of a mysterious entity commanding the undead forces from within.

At a missile silo in the "Ruka" region, Ravenov reveals that Peck has been using Aetherium crystals to supercharge nuclear warheads, which would allow Omega Group to create new outbreak zones wherever they choose.

After clearing out a massive zombie horde guarding the silo, the strike team succeeds in deploying the warheads and is exfiltrated from the area by Requiem pilot Stoney "Raptor One" Maddox (Derek Phillips).

With Omega Group's instructions and the assistance of "Klaus", a combat robot customized with an artificial intelligence module created by the Director of Requiem, the strike team constructs a miniature Aetherium warhead using components left onsite by the CIA at an abandoned safe house.

On June 4, 1985, the Requiem strike team is deployed to an Omega test site in Ukraine, where Kravchenko and Peck are conducting the final steps to open a Dark Aether gateway.

The Director—revealed to be Edward Richtofen (Nolan North)—orders Requiem to be shut down, and its department leads, including Weaver, Grey, Carver, and Strauss, apprehended alongside the strike team and Raptor One, while the Forsaken's chamber is delivered to an unknown location.

[24][25] According to reports from Jason Schreier, the title originally began development as a collaboration between Raven and Sledgehammer Games, which was not intended to be an entry in the Black Ops sub-series, but due to frequent disagreements between the two studios, Activision chose to assign Treyarch to work on the project in May 2019.

[29] Prior to beginning work on the title, Wall spent weeks reviewing various pieces of in-game material provided by Treyarch's audio director, Brian Tuey; this included story treatments and documents covering Black Ops Cold War's level design and flow.

[30] Wall also collaborated with musician Big Giant Circles on an "energetic" theme song for Black Ops Cold War's multiplayer component, titled "Rising Tide".

[41] On September 23, teasers for the Zombies mode began to appear on "PawnTakesPawn.com"; on the same day, various Call of Duty YouTubers, including NoahJ456 and MrDalekJD, were sent crates, which contained 1980s technology and ciphers to solve.

GameSpot's Kallie Plagge praised the campaign's open-ended level design, and highlighted a mission that gives players "free rein" to explore a KGB building, writing that it was "a showcase for both stealth and freedom of choice".

[4] PC Gamer's Morgan Park commented that the campaign's strongest features, such as the stealth-focused missions and the interactions with NPCs, were "under-explored or fleeting", and felt that the game's "perplexing" plot had ended abruptly.

IGN's Simon Cardy gave it a 6/10 score, writing that it was a step backwards from the multiplayer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) in several aspects, including map design, visuals, and day-one content.

[16] PCGamesN's Jordan Forward appreciated the inclusion of several features that he thought were helpful in making the mode more accessible to new players, such as the customizable pre-game loadouts and the addition of health bars for all enemies.