The Call of Duty franchise is renowned for its expansive and ever-evolving multiplayer suite, and the upcoming entry, Black Ops Cold War, is looking to impress longtime fans with its slew of changes and game modes.
Each game usually contains more modes than any one player know what to do with, and Treyarch has already confirmed a slew of them to get fans excited for the November 13th 2020 release on current and next generation consoles. Many of them are mainstays of the franchise, while a few others are brand new and are looking to change the way people play. Only time will tell if these become fan favorites, however.
10 Team Deathmatch
An oldie but a goodie for first-person shooters, Team Deathmatch perfectly describes itself in the name: two teams duke it out for the most kills on a map. Those wanting something simple will be plenty satisfied with just running around the levels and shooting other players. The developers already promised a reworked spawning system, hopefully making camping more difficult than it was in prior releases.
9 Zombies
Very little is known about this mode so far, but the fan favorite will be making a return in some form for Black Ops Cold War. What started out as a fun diversion in 2008’s Call of Duty: World at War has turned into almost an entirely separate cooperative campaign that comes with most of the Treyarch entries. Some entirely ignore the other aspects of the game, opting to dive headfirst into Zombies right away.
8 Free-For-All
Wherever there’s Team Deathmatch, there is Free-For-All. Instead of two teams running around the map, it is everybody for themselves.
When coordinating with a group to nab the most kills is still too structured, Free-For-All provides pure chaos. If it works like in Modern Warfare, inflating one’s win count using this mode will be easy, since getting in the top three counts as a victory.
7 Domination
Domination puts three control points on the map for to two teams to fight for control over. Having three separate locations makes strategy essential to victory. It is difficult to successfully capture all three points, since the team usually spreads too thin when trying to defend every zone. This also makes it chaotic enough to be enjoyable for those who just want to run around and shoot some enemies.
6 Kill Confirmed
Kill Confirmed is similar to Team Deathmatch, only with one major difference. In order to score points, players must pick up dog tags left by dead bodies. This prevents players from hiding too long in the shadows, since they eventually have to reveal themselves to obtain the point for their team. Some prefer this method, since it encourages more aggressive, close range encounters. Those who like sniping probably won’t fancy it as much, however, considering long range kills are less effective.
5 Search And Destroy
Search and Destroy is a high stakes round-based match where two teams take turns defending and destroying an objective, kind of like Counter-Strike. The attacking team has a bomb and must plant it at one of two points. Once it is planted, they then have to defend it from being disarmed. No respawns makes every move and bullet count. Because of the different rules, different loadouts are encouraged.
4 Control
Control feels like a combination of elements from both Search and Destroy and Domination. Two control points are in the field and one team has to capture them while the other defends.
Each team also only has a certain amount of lives and once a control point is captured, it cannot be reclaimed by the defending team. Having a bad team is especially detrimental here, since they drain all the extra lives from the whole group.
3 Hardpoint
Hardpoint is a little bit like domination, except only one control point exists on the map. This way, all the action is focused on a single area. Players are granted infinite respawns, so they can dust the brush off their shoulders and head right back into the action. The control point eventually rotates to a different part of the map, ensuring the round does not grow stale as players rush to one area for its duration.
2 Fireteam
Fireteam is new to the franchise and is Treyarch’s version of large scale encounters mixing both vehicular and boots on the ground combat. This mode is so big, it is filled with varying objectives of its own for the squads to accomplish. So far, only one such mode has been announced: Dirty Bomb, where a team has to find and deliver Uranium to a location to trigger an explosion.
1 VIP Escort
While so many Call of Duty game modes involve teams defending objects or points, this game mode makes the target a player. One team protects a VIP and attempts to guide them to the extraction point while the other team must eliminate the target. The VIP is not completely vulnerable, either, equipped with a pistol and several support items. Certainly some expert players will have no problem disposing of the entire enemy team as the VIP.
