Call of Duty Black Ops: Treyarch’s elaborate Cold War reveal puzzle led us to stumble on a declassified CIA report


A number of Gfinity folks have been following along with the elaborate Cold War reveal that’s unfolding on YouTube and elsewhere, and our own Harry Chapman’s found something interesting: a declassified CIA report from the Cold War.

“An extensive underground construction project has been identified on the southeastern slope of the highest peak in the southern Ural Mountains,” the report states. “Yamantau mountain is the highest peak in the southern Urals, with an elevation of 1,630 meters, and is composed of hard crystalline rock. The function of the project, which does not resemble a mining operation, has not been determined.”

This bit of real-world history lines up nicely with Black Ops 4’s in-game description of the multiplayer map Summit, which reads: “Cold War surveillance is at its peak above the clouds in the mountaintop listening post in the Ural Mountains.”

“It is a possible command and control center,” a senior Clinton Administration official told The New York Times in ’96. “It is a possible project to maintain the capability to carry out wartime production after a nuclear strike. It is a possible storage area for weapons they do not want us to know about.”

The new Call of Duty’s got us dropping links to CIA.gov now; 2020 continues to surprise us. We can probably expect a trailer for Cold War by Monday night.

Cold War: Know your history

The Black Ops: Cold War reveal has turned out to be a wild puzzle-solving exercise, on par with some of the all-time great Destiny quests. So far, it’s requiring community participation and multiple game clients — including Black Ops 4 and Modern Warfare (2019) — to solve.

At the time of writing, YouTuber NoahJ456 and several other players were using the slides to decipher a code, in game, on the Black Ops 4 version of Summit. Their current hypothesis is that the slides will eventually lead them to the Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War announcement trailer.

As spotted by Charlie Intel, it’s worth pointing out that the official Treyarch Twitter account has made the mountains behind Summit their new cover image. Could they be teasing the next location for Warzone, maybe? Or a centerpiece of their next story campaign or Zombies mode?

Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is slated for release later this year.

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Warzone season five

Modern Warfare and Warzone both got a massive seasonal update on August 5, introducing a new battle pass; new maps for 6v6 multiplayer, Ground War, and Gunfight; and of course a season’s worth of new modes, Operators, weapons, and cosmetic rewards.

For more, check out all of Gfinity’s season-five Modern Warfare coverage.

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