Both time periods involve the characters pursuing Raul Menendez, a Nicaraguan arms dealer and later terrorist, who is responsible for kidnapping David in the 80s and later sparking a Second Cold War in 2025.

[6] Locations featured in the game include Angola, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Cayman Islands, Panama, Yemen, the United States, and Haiti.

Black Ops II is the first game in the series to feature futuristic warfare technology and the first to present branching storylines driven by player choice as well as selecting weapons before starting story mode missions.

[7] It had remained the largest entertainment launch of all time until September 2013, when Take-Two Interactive announced that Grand Theft Auto V had grossed $800 million in its first day of release.

[13] Black Ops II is the first Call of Duty video game to feature branching storylines, in which the player's choice affects both the current mission and in turn, the overall course of the story.

New characters include: Section's DEVGRU teammates Mike Harper (Michael Rooker) and Javier Salazar (Celestino Cornielle), their commanding officer Admiral Tommy Briggs (Tony Todd), the CIA double agent Farid (Omid Abtahi), US President Marion Bosworth (Cira Larkin), Strategic Defense Coalition leader General Tian Zhao (Byron Mann), and Tacitus Corporation ex-employee Chloe Lynch (codenamed Karma) (Erin Cahill).

The game also features several historical and real-life characters, including: UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi (Robert Wisdom), Panamanian General Manuel Noriega (Benito Martinez), Colonel Oliver North (voiced by himself), and former CIA Director David Petraeus (Jim Meskimen).

The majority of the story follows four new characters: Samuel Stuhlinger (David Boat), Marlton Johnson (Scott Menville), Abigail "Misty" Briarton (Stephanie Lemelin) and Russman (Keith Szarabajka).

After aiding Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebels against Angola's Marxist government, Mason and Hudson recover Woods from a barge on the Cubango River, subsequently encountering a Nicaraguan arms dealer named Raul Menendez among a contingent of Cuban military advisers.

Several weeks after their ordeal in Afghanistan, Mason, Woods, Hudson, and Panamanian Defense Forces, led by General Manuel Noriega, raid Menendez's compound in Nicaragua.

In 2021, the organization stages a cyberattack that cripples the Chinese stock exchanges, forcing their government to leverage its economic influence, and sparking a Second Cold War between NATO and the Chinese-led Strategic Defense Coalition headed by Zhao.

After raiding a Cordis Die compound in Myanmar, Section's team learns that Menendez is planning a second cyberattack utilizing a new rare-earth element known as "celerium," which uses quantum entanglement and could be converted into an extremely powerful computer virus.

Section and his team infiltrate an exotic floating city known as Colossus, where they either rescue Lynch and kill Menendez's lieutenant, DeFalco; or fail and allow her to be kidnapped.

The precise consequences of Salazar's betrayal are determined by the preceding fates of Lynch, Farid, and DeFalco: After wounding or executing Briggs, Menendez uses the Obama's terminal to hack into a military satellite via a celerium virus he smuggled aboard, seizing control of the entire American drone fleet.

The Obama survives the subsequent attack if the preceding Strike Force missions were completed, causing China to send drones to assist, and if Briggs remains alive to activate the ship's defenses.

Regardless, Menendez uses the drones to attack Los Angeles, among other major American and Chinese cities, during a meeting of G20 leaders, hoping to kill them and foment widespread economic and civil chaos; Section escorts the US President to safety.

In this new world, four survivors - Samuel Stuhlinger, Abigail "Misty" Briarton, Marlton, and Russman - have banded together to survive in Washington with the help of a bus driven by a robotic driver.

Following their battles in Shanghai, Russman leads the group across the continents to a large hole in the ground known as The Rift in Africa, hoping to find answers about the unseen forces commanding them.

Aiming to stop Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States respectively send their agent: Takeo, Nikolai, and Dempsey, to capture Richtofen, the mastermind behind the advanced technology.

Air raid sirens are heard and the two children retreat to the basement with Maxis, with Samantha noting her father has a plan to make the heroes of their games real.

A separate story, "Mob of the Dead", taking place also in Dimension 63, focuses on four mobsters: Salvatore "Sal" DeLuca, Billy Handsome, Michael "Finn" O'Leary, and Albert "The Weasel" Arlington, who are incarcerated at Alcatraz Island.

[30] On April 18, 2012, Kotaku received an image from "a retail source", which showed a teaser poster that lacked a game title but had clear clues to Black Ops and a May 2 date that seemingly points to an unveiling.

[35] However, parts of the official website went live hours prior to the announcement, which revealed the title, confirmed the release date for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and the "21st Century Cold War" setting.

Additional artists include Sean Murray, Jimmy Hinson, Sergio Jimenez Lacima, Kamar de los Reyes, Azam Ali, & Rudy Cardenas.

After explaining his duties, Stormare is then shown in multiple situations where he has taken over random people's jobs, such as masquerading as a pregnant lady's husband, working at an office, and enduring a grandmother's endless talking, among other such scenarios.

[72] Like Gallegos, Ryckert praised the narrative and structure of the single-player campaign, introducing changes that he felt were overdue and noting that the branching storylines "had me talking to others about their experiences in a way I had never done before with this [Call of Duty] series".

[80] In particular to the narrative, Good Game was critical of the opening battle where the player guns down fleeing African rebels, feeling that it was added purely for shock value and commenting that: The landscape of shooters is changing somewhat.

[80]Frederick Charles Fripp of IT News Africa gave it a final score of 9.2/10 and wrote that "BO2 is a non-stop action-packed shooter that will keep gamers on their toes and on the edge of their seats.

Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Black Ops II for outstanding achievement in "Connectivity", "Online Gameplay" and "Visual Engineering".

[82] Activision reported Black Ops II grossed over $500 million in its first 24 hours, making it the biggest entertainment launch of all time until the record was surpassed by Grand Theft Auto V in September 2013.