With Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer fans waiting for the beta to begin and Zombies fans in the middle of the reveal puzzle, players looking forward to the campaign have also gotten a bit more news. In an interview with PlayStation Magazine, Raven Software member Dan Vondrak discussed a Black Ops Cold War side mission feature.

With Raven taking over development on Black Ops Cold War’s campaign, the team is looking to do something different with the mode. One inclusion to the game will be side missions, which have not been seen since the much-maligned Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. According to Vondrak, these side missions have extra layers that can be unlocked by completing unique puzzles within each optional mission, adding more objectives to complete with Alex Mason and Frank Woods.

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Vondrak told the Raven team during development that “if this was an 80s game, you would have to solve some kind of puzzle.” While initially confused, the team eventually added puzzles to the side missions where players have to “use the evidence” given to them to unlock an extra part of the side mission they are playing. The goal is to create another callback to Black Ops Cold War’s 1980s campaign setting, with the gameplay in these puzzle sections resembling the games from the era.

How challenging and complex the side mission puzzles will be is unclear, but the team seems to be prioritizing player choice with this year’s Call of Duty game. With character creation that includes a Classified option for non-binary gamers, as well as “some RPG” and puzzle mechanics, the Black Ops Cold War campaign seems to be aimed at bringing more than just FPS fans into the CoD ecosystem. Vondrak and the team at Raven claim to have a goal of “breaking out of the normal traditional Call of Duty structure,” and with these unique side missions, they might just succeed.

The Black Ops Cold War campaign was recently confirmed to feature multiple endings as well, another feature that has not been seen within the CoD series for some time. The last time choices were able to be made that influence the outcome of the game was back in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, the last campaign that featured the original Black Ops cast. Quite a few choices and endings existed within that campaign, so it will be interesting to see how diverse the endings of Black Ops Cold War will be in comparison.

Until players get their hands on the campaign themselves this November, all they can really do is rewatch the Black Ops Cold War campaign gameplay from the PlayStation 5 Showcase. The mission shown in that trailer includes no puzzles, though, so it remains a mystery just how deep this side mission system will go.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is set to release on November 13th for PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

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Source: PlayStation Magazine via SegmentNext