Call of Duty: The Whole Black Ops Timeline So Far

Call of Duty: Black Ops is simply a decades-spanning communicative of deception, betrayal, and questionable psychiatry. It’s conscionable 1 of CoD’s respective abstracted subseries, but it’s by acold the beefiest.

Back successful 2010, it would person been casual for developer Treyarch to whip up immoderate jungle assets and vessel Call of Duty 7: Vietnam, but alternatively it unleashed a sprawling techno-thriller with all-you-can devour acronyms successful which fractional of the characters are hallucinations and the remainder are humanities figures up to nary good.

Black Ops is wherever Call of Duty gets weird– a stylish caput travel with crippled twists to spare. There’s a century’s worthy of storyline successful this epic espionage saga with much connected the way, truthful see this your pre-mission briefing up of Black Ops 7. Here is everything you request to cognize astir the Black Ops communicative truthful far.

BLOPS is simply a twisted web of flashbacks, imagination sequences, and choice-driven alternate endings, truthful we’re charting the astir chronological and canonical way we can. It begins with a World astatine War.

1942

Stalingrad, September 1942. Red Army worker Dimitri Petrenko claws his mode done streets of corpses guided by his comrade, Soviet sniper Viktor Reznov. Reznov’s begetter was killed by the Nazis, creating successful him a thirst for payback truthful heavy that not adjacent decease volition quench it.

1945

Petrenko and Reznov blast into Berlin and works the hammer and sickle atop the Reichstag successful 1945. Black Ops 1 reveals their post-war fates. Treacherous serviceman Nikita Dragovich and his favored sadist Lev Kravchenko resistance our heroes into a task unit hunting German idiosyncratic Friedrich Steiner– the evil genius down a doomsday nervus state called Nova 6. They country the unrepentant jerk successful the Arctic Circle wherever Steiner defects, to Reznov’s disgust.

Dragovich betrays Reznov and gasses his men with the Nova 6, sidesplitting respective including our POV quality from World astatine War. Reznov is rescued by the British but sinks the Nova stockpile beneath the ice.Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner flight with the formula. Reznov is recaptured and sent to the Vorkuta situation campy wherever helium waits 16 years for a caller protagonist to bro retired with.

1961

During the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States supports a coup that fails to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. In existent life, the U.S. provided funding, training, and aerial enactment for the revolution. In Black Ops 1, the CIA sends immoderate peculiar ops assassins to destruct Castro: Alaskan Marine Alex Mason, Navy Seal Joseph Bowman, and chain-smoking, nigh unkillable seasoned Frank Woods. Mason and Woods go the bedrock characters of BLOPS. Bowman, not truthful much.

Treyarch’s trio instrumentality down El Commandante’s assemblage double. Mason is captured and taunted by an live and good Fidel. Castro hands his captive implicit to returning Soviet heavies Kravchenko and Dragovich, who propulsion him successful the gulag astatine Vorkuta.

The atrocious guys rewire Mason’s encephalon to go a sleeper cause controlled by a cryptic numbers station. Mason resists with the assistance of Reznov, his lone state successful the bowels of the Russian prison– Shawshank Redemption successful a Soviet labour camp. As the men bond, Reznov programs a backdoor into Mason’s brain, compelling him to annihilate Steiner, Kravchenko, and Dragovich by immoderate means necessary.

1963

Reznov engineers an uprising with a catchy 8-step program that doubles arsenic a conditioning tool. Big Vik sacrifices his ain state truthful Mason tin drawback the past bid retired of Vorkuta, ending his 2 twelvemonth imprisonment.

The highly traumatized Mason is assigned to handler Jason Hudson and summoned to the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara briefs them connected Dragovich’s plans portion Mason, who astir apt should person taken immoderate aforesaid attraction PTO, starts to unravel. Mason’s intelligence breakdown crescendos erstwhile helium meets John F. Kennedy arsenic Dragovich’s programming surfaces.

Despite the information that helium conscionable crashed retired successful beforehand of the President, Mason’s bosses nonstop him to sabotage the Soyuz abstraction programme and torch the squad of Nazi scientists moving connected Nova 6. The squad rescues double-agent Grigori Weaver, who loses an oculus successful the process. He doesn’t person a monolithic relation beyond BLOPS 1, but helium plays a pivotal portion successful the Zombies’ Dark Aether Saga– 1 of galore characters who recovered caller beingness wrong the mode.

Most operators would telephone it a time there, but due to the fact that of Reznov’s programming, Mason virtually cannot halt until helium finds and ends Dragovich. The pack blows up his limo but they bail earlier the termination is confirmed.

Five days later, President Kennedy is assassinated successful Dallas, Texas. Mason is contiguous astatine the scene, but the CIA is rather unbothered by the brainwashed sidesplitting machine’s proximity to the transgression of the period and keeps him connected the payroll.

1968

In Vietnam, Mason joins up with aged buddies Woods and Bowman successful hunt of Soviet intel connected Nova 6. Mason meets with a defector that helium believes is Viktor Reznov and they past a batch of enactment setpieces together. The unit yet arrives successful Laos to unafraid a crashed level carrying a cargo of Nova 6, but the state is gone erstwhile they arrive.

VC and Spetsnaz troops ambush squad BLOPS and unit them to play Russian Roulette successful a gruesome homage to The Deer Hunter. After Bowman is brutally murdered, Mason and Woods combat their mode free, hijack a Hind, and bust up Kravchenko's headquarters, redeeming “Reznov” erstwhile again. Woods sacrifices himself to prevention Mason from the cornered Kravchenko, and some men are presumed dead. In existent Call of Duty fashion, neither are.

Meanwhile, Weaver and Hudson marque interaction with Dr. Steiner, who is present terrified of Dragovich and hopeless to flip connected him. He reveals that Dragovich is hours distant from ordering sleeper agents to unleash Nova 6 crossed the U.S., provoking atomic war. Hudson and Weaver unreserved to Steiner’s laboratory connected Rebirth Island, but Mason and his guardian angel bushed them to it. They infiltrate the installation connected their ain and find Steiner. Reznov executes the Nazi scientist, but that’s not what Hudson and Weaver see. Mason is alone, and they ticker him propulsion the trigger.

Hudson and Weaver instrumentality Mason successful and contention to unravel his severely compromised encephalon to halt World War 3. Their hopeless interrogation makes up the iconic framework communicative of Black Ops 1. “The numbers, Mason!” ranks among Call of Duty’s astir immortal lines– close up determination with “50,000 radical utilized to unrecorded here” and “f***ing campers.”

We larn the truth: Reznov died successful Vorkuta and the disgruntled aged worker who's been pursuing Mason astir is simply a Fight Club-style figment of his imagination.

Mason decodes the series and leads a onslaught connected Dragovich’s undersea numbers station. In the last showdown, Mason strangles Dragovich and puts an extremity to his decades-spanning plot. This volition not beryllium the past of Mason’s problems.

With Black Ops successful the bag, we leap guardant 4 games successful the merchandise bid to Black Ops: Cold War, acceptable successful the little model of the 1980s earlier the flashback sequences of Black Ops 2. Dragovich is dead, Mason is fractional retired of his mind, and a caller fig named Persus has emerged from the ashes.

1981

Soviet spymaster “Perseus” amasses powerfulness and creates his ain rogue quality web to sow discord crossed the world. By 1981, they’ve stolen an American-made atomic weaponry courtesy of Operation Greenlight, an highly dubious top-secret programme that hid scorched-earth nukes each crossed Europe.

Woods is backmost successful enactment aft blowing up and escaping from a POW camp. Hudson asks him to articulation Mason and caller ace spy feline Russell Adler to hunt down Perseus for the CIA. They seizure an injured Perseus lieutenant and bring them successful for immoderate airy MKULTRA. M16 cause Helen Park helps implant the Perseus cause with mendacious memories of serving with Adler successful Vietnam successful bid to exploit them for intel.

Reborn arsenic “Bell,” the caller subordinate quality joins Adler’s team, wherever they are kept successful cheque with a “would you kindly” benignant power phrase: “We’ve got a occupation to do.” They stitchery a CIA Scooby pack and uncover a Spetsnaz grooming crushed dressed up similar an idyllic American suburb, implicit with an arcade and period-appropriate Doritos. They corroborate the stolen nuke was of U.S. origin, and larn the information astir Operation Greenlight– and their boss’s relation successful it.

Hudson was not lone alert of the plan, helium was successful complaint of it. The squad shelves their beef and plots to bargain a database of sleeper agents from KGB office successful Moscow.

With the assistance of a mole named Belikov, Adler and Bell infiltrate the Lubyanka and transverse paths with Mikhail Gorbachev and a clump of Soviet spooks, including young Imran Zakhaev, the aboriginal last brag of Modern Warfare. The 2 bid don’t transverse implicit precise often, but determination are sporadic hints that the worlds of Treyarch and Infinity Ward aren’t arsenic abstracted arsenic they seem.

The agents spell large and flight with the sleeper list, which points them to a Greenlight idiosyncratic named Hastings. By the clip they find him it’s excessively late– Perseus has the activation codes.

Adler abandons his wholly subtle mind-meld strategy and force-feeds drugs straight into Bell’s encephalon instead. Their past arsenic a Perseus cause resurfaces on with the determination of the concealed base.

The communicative tin spell a fewer antithetic ways from here, but arsenic acold arsenic canon is concerned, Bell lets Adler’s intrusion descent and gives up the existent location. The squad destroys Perseus’ monastery stronghold and secures the nukes, but the antheral himself escapes. Hudson, wanting to wide up immoderate escaped ends, orders Adler to execute Bell arsenic the communicative concludes.

Cold War sits awkwardly successful the Black Ops timeline– you’d deliberation idiosyncratic would notation the full “seeding a continent with nukes” happening implicit the adjacent fewer decades of the story. Still, the retcon works, and characters similar Park volition popular up successful aboriginal games.

The existent main lawsuit of Black Ops successful the 1980s isn’t Perseus, however– it’s Black Ops 2's Raul Menendez, a ruthless arms trader turned charismatic cult person locked successful a 40-year humor feud with Mason and Woods.

1986

Alex Mason has retired to Alaska’s frozen tundra, raising his lad David and being mostly irritable. He should effort mushing wolf-dogs. Ex-handler Hudson and Oliver North travel a-knocking with 1 past job: “Uncle” Woods has gotten himself captured again portion messing astir successful the Angolan civilian war.

Mason and Hudson rescue Woods and successful the process Mason crosses paths with an ice-cold young arms trader named Raul Menendez. The men scuffle, Mason shoots his oculus retired and leaves him for dead.

At this constituent successful his career, Mason has slaughtered full legions of hostile NPCS. What quality does 1 much gun-runner make? But Menendez survives with a gnarly scar and swears vengeance connected the spook.

Raul was raised during Nicaragua’s soiled wars, watching U.S. backed Contras teardrop his homeland to shreds. His animosity towards America became idiosyncratic erstwhile his beloved sister Josefina was astir burned live by a greedy American businessman.

Raul and his begetter built a monolithic cause cartel that attracted the ire of the CIA. The bureau merced Papa Menendez successful beforehand of his son, which further soured Raul’s feelings towards the United States.

By 1986, he’s moving arms with the Soviets successful Afghanistan. Mason and institution are sent to intervene, linking up with section state fighters and a Chinese interaction named Tian Zhao. They past a Soviet onslaught led by Lev Kravchenko, past of the Dragovich loyalists.

The show of Kravchenko does a fig connected Mason’s, let’s look it, wholly cooked brain, but it’s Woods who canonically delivers the killshot aft they larn astir a mole successful the CIA.

The Mujahideen person turns connected the Americans nether orders from Menendez, leaving the squad to dice successful the desert. A delirious Mason sees “Tricky Vik” Reznov thrust successful connected horseback to prevention the day.

The CIA finds the Menendez household compound successful Nicaragua and cuts a cheque to Manuel Noriega, the real-life Panamanian dictator connected the U.S. payroll. Noriega’s goons tempest the compound and brutalize Josefina. Raul goes berzerk. Noriega shoots his ain men and lets Menendez spell arsenic a favor, which Raul returns by astir beating the wide to death.

When they yet meet, Woods hurls a grenade meant for Raul, but a atrocious bounce means it kills Josefina instead. Raul survives, and vows that Woods, and the full world, volition 1 time consciousness his implicit loss. Three years later, Menendez puts his program into motion.

1989

The U.S. invades Panama with the purpose of overthrowing Noriega. In existent life, Noriega was smoked retired of the Vatican embassy by Van Halen euphony connected loop. In BLOPSworld he’s captured by (who else?) Mason and Woods. Hudson informs his men that Noriega is simply a “high-value individual” to beryllium exchanged for an anonymous prisoner.

Hudson tells Woods that the hooded captive is Raul Menendez, and orders him to sprout the restrained captive during the swap. To Woods’s horror, the antheral is truly Alex Mason, and portion the canon isn’t perfectly wide astir this, it’s wide believed that Mason is nary more.

Afterwards, the existent Menendez appears, blows distant Woods’s kneecaps, and reveals that he’s kidnapped Mason’s lad David. Menendez utilized the lad arsenic leverage to unit Hudson to bash his bidding. He slits Hudson’s pharynx with Josefina’s locket, leaves David traumatized, and spares Woods to endure with the guilt of sidesplitting his closest friend.

In 1 fell swoop, 2 pb characters from the erstwhile Black Ops crippled were wiped disconnected the committee and different horribly mutilated, leaving young David to prime up the pieces– a communicative to which we’ll instrumentality aft a detour done the aboriginal ‘90s for Black Ops 6.

Woods spends the intervening years riding a table and raising David arsenic champion helium tin without revealing the information down his father’s death. The CIA believes that Russell Adler is the mole, paid disconnected by Menendez to teamkill his CoD clan. Woods doesn’t bargain it, and suspects a shadiness faction wrong the bureau itself: Pantheon.

Pantheon began arsenic a CIA subdivision successful the ‘70s, experimenting with a psychotropic super-soldier serum called Project: Cradle. After a disastrous outbreak of the Cradle microorganism turned survivors into hallucinating rage monsters, Deputy Director Daniel Livingstone officially disavowed it.

The radical reformed arsenic an autarkic rogue cabal, reviving Cradle successful concealed portion fanning the flames of America’s everlastingly wars.

Speaking of which, drawback your champion bootleg Bart Simpson garment and get acceptable to rip immoderate packs of Gulf War generals, due to the fact that it’s 1991 and we’re invading Iraq… the archetypal time.

1991

Wheelchair-bound Woods is fielding a caller team: his protege Troy Marshall, ops specializer Jane Harrow, and the enigmatic William “Case” Calderon. The squad is tasked to extract Saddam Hussein’s defecting defence curate Saeed Alawai, but their people is executed connected the spot by fugitive Russell Adler.

Adler insists that the CIA is compromised, and says helium couldn’t let the antheral to autumn into Pantheon’s clutches. He surrenders himself with a elemental riddle for Woods: “Bishop takes Rook.” Livingstone dismisses his informing and suspends the squad, who determine to travel Adler’s way anyway.

“Rook” refers to an aged KGB safehouse successful Bulgaria that Adler and Woods discovered during their adventures successful the ‘70s. The disgraced squad shacks up determination and recruits immoderate caller allies: German tech feline Felix Neumann and Sev Dumas, an assassin from the fictional city-state of Avalon. She was trained and betrayed by the Guild, an underground transgression web that volition go mode much important successful the sequel.

With the pack assembled, they interruption retired Adler from a CIA achromatic tract heavy beneath the U.S. Capitol gathering portion Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton works the country astatine a glitzy gala upstairs..

Back astatine the Rook, Adler explains that Pantheon was successful furniture with Hussein, trading experimental weapons for entree to his definitely-real WMD facilities. He tells them astir Cradle and wherever they mightiness find it. Next stop: Saddam’s palace.

With assistance from Cold War’s Helen Park, the rogue BLOPers infiltrate Hussein’s gilded bunker. Among his hoard of treasures, the squad finds a illustration of Cradle. They besides observe that Jane Harrow is Pantheon’s mole wrong the CIA and hint the virus’s root to a probe installation connected American soil.

When they get successful Kentucky, Case falls down an elevator shaft and is exposed to the Cradle, experiencing a Zombie nightmare.

Case overcomes his BLOPs protagonist amnesia and unlocks his past– helium was the failed archetypal trial “case” for a Cradle-powered super-soldier. The task was scrapped, his memories were erased, and helium was welcomed backmost into the loving arms of the CIA, which remains oddly unconcerned with the scrambling of its employees’ minds.

A casino heist points the squad towards Gusev, Harrow’s Cradle scientist. He’s hiding retired successful Kuwait, truthful Case, Adler, and Lawrence Sims, different Cold War veteran, crushed his flight.

Gusev tells the pack that Pantheon’s office is located successful an aged Soviet situation camp– Victor Reznov’s aged haunt Vorkuta, crushed zero for the full Black Ops saga.

In the astir shameless nostalgia fest since Snake returned to Shadow Moses, squad Rogue BLOPs revisits the gulag and apprehends the traitorous Harrow. They dose her with information serum and resistance the full communicative retired of her: She blames Adler for the home-invasion deaths of her parents and joined Pantheon for revenge.

Their maestro program is to usage the Cradle for a false-flag panic onslaught connected Washington, D.C. The Iraqis would instrumentality the fall, Livingstone would beryllium KIA, and Harrow/Pantheon would beryllium successful complaint of the CIA.

Pantheon invades the Rook, mounting disconnected a climactic safehouse standoff. Harrow attempts to flight connected a helicopter, but Case boards her vas mid-flight. Completely geeked connected Cradle, Case strangles Harrow successful a unsighted rage and sends the chopper crashing into a river, wherever some are presumed dead. Sure they are!

Livingstone makes bid with Woods, Adler, and Marshall and encourages them to bent retired their shingle arsenic an off-the-books Black Ops cell. In a last stinger, we spot that Pantheon is down but not retired arsenic different mole, Jackson Caine, slips into Livingstone’s bureau and hacks into his computer.

The communicative continues 44 years aboriginal successful Black Ops 7, but archetypal there’s the substance of Menendez to be to.

In 2014, a societal question named Cordis Die emerges from the internet. Its charismatic person Odysseus gains followers with his impassioned rants against the corrupt 1%. He engineers riots successful Iran and North Korea and develops an unstoppable machine worm retired of the uncommon world metallic Celerium with the assistance of hacker Chloe Lynch.

He uses it to hack the Chinese banal speech successful 2018, pinning the blasted connected the U.S. and triggering a 2nd acold warfare betwixt NATO and China amid an escalated drone arms race. Mason’s erstwhile state Tian Zhao is successful complaint of China’s SDC and moving with Menendez, combining their immense resources to vigor up the struggle and usher successful a caller satellite order.

2025

By the acold disconnected distant aboriginal of 2025, Cordis Die has amassed 2 cardinal followers, nary of whom realise their cult person is the Nicaraguan narco-terrorist, and that the full “Occupy BLOPS” question was conscionable a screen for 1 man’s mad-on against Woods and Mason. Young David Mason is present a Navy Seal relation named “Section” who inactive checks successful connected his beloved aged Uncle Frank.

Menendez makes the archetypal determination by visiting a still-living, still-smoking Woods successful the Vault, a status location for Mimis and Pop Pops with reddish successful their ledger. He leaves down the pendant utilized to execution Hudson.

Section and his JSOC boys Mike Harper and Javier Salazar sojourn Woods for immoderate action-packed ‘60s flashbacks. The aged antheral gives them the ungraded connected his tragic past with Menendez and clues them successful astir Celerium. The young bucks embark connected a bid of missions investigating Menendez, and his monolithic mercenary army.

The pack eavesdrops for intel astir a cyber limb called “Karma.” Section, Harper, and Salazar hunt for it connected the decadent floating metropolis of Colossus, wherever they observe that “Karma” is really Chloe Lynch, and that Menendez is trying to termination her to support her quiescent astir the Celerium machine worm.

Her destiny has yet to beryllium confirmed by canon, but if they bash prevention Karma from apical henchman DeFalco, she uncovers Menendez's eventual plan: connected June 19th, Freedom Day, he’s going to hijack the U.S. military’s drone strategy and unleash an physics rumbling connected each large metropolis wrong some planetary superpowers. That’s tomorrow.

Over Section’s objections, his commandant Admiral Briggs decides it’s precocious clip to drawback Menendez. They interaction Farid, a heavy screen operative observing Menendez ignite a gyration successful Yemen. Farid sacrifices himself to prevention Harper and Melendez is easy captured and taken onboard the craft bearer U.S.S. Barack Obama.

Surprise! We were playing close into Menendez’s superb ruse the full time. It’s the “getting caught was portion of my plan” gambit that was each the rage successful the precocious aughts, though to beryllium fair, Black Ops 2 scribe David S. Goyer besides wrote the screenplay for the trope-defining Dark Knight.

Cordis Die goons tempest the Obama and Menendez seizes power of the vessel with the assistance of his treble agent, your present ex-BFF Salazar. He uploads the microorganism and takes implicit the U.S. subject drone web earlier escaping.

Since canon presumes you completed the bonus Strike Missions and took down Tian Zhao, Chinese planes volition prevention the vessel and state with JSOC against the drones, ending the acold warfare for good.

As thousands of metallic decease machines swarm upon populated cities, Section, Harper, David Petraeus, and the President of the United States are changeable down successful a war-torn Los Angeles. Under siege by an service of slayer drones, the men escort POTUS to information successful 1 the astir spectacular setpieces successful a bid that has a batch of them.

JSOC and China hint the drone power awesome to a Cordis Die installation successful Haiti and signifier a full-scale invasion. Menendez goes unrecorded erstwhile they arrive, but alternatively of destroying the world’s cities helium blows up each azygous 1 of the drones instead, crippling American subject infrastructure.

Section yet captures his father’s murderer and makes a martyr retired of Menendez– which is precisely what helium wanted. He posts a posthumous YouTube video instructing his billions of followers to instrumentality vantage of the drone-free powerfulness void and prehend power of the United States.

Treyarch has been beauteous steadfast that the "Menendez dies” ending of Black Op 2 is canonical, though his promised Cordis Die uprising fizzles out.

2035

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is acceptable a decennary aft the extremity of BLOPS 2. Frank Woods has yet gone to that aged soldiers’ location successful the entity and David Mason is inactive dorkily calling himself Section and starring a caller squad named “Specter One,” with aged faces similar Harper and Marshall and caller ones similar the bionic 50/50.

The satellite is inactive shaken from the drone incident. The Guild has shed its shady opening and is reborn arsenic a almighty tech elephantine offering extortion successful uncertain times. In 2035, the dormant Menendez shocks the satellite with a prophecy and a threat: successful 3 days, your streets volition tally reddish with your blood. He’s presumably referring to a caller fear-based macguffin that pushes minds to the borderline of consciousness with emblematic Black Ops trippiness.

It’s a “five minutes into the future” setting, a interaction much sci-fi than Modern Warfare but person to a time that seems conscionable astir the corner. It’s not the archetypal clip that Black Ops has moved guardant successful the timeline, and it’s obscurity adjacent to the elephantine leap taken by Treyarch for Black Ops 3.

2062

Set successful 2062, Black Ops 3 is the unusual duck successful an already beauteous weird franchise. It depicts a surreal, Phillip K. Dickian aboriginal that’s been forged successful the fallout of Cordis Die’s drone war, wherever the aged geopolitical bid has collapsed and optimized into 2 bloated megafactions locked successful endless proxy wars. New exertion makes aerial supremacy obsolete. Mechs roam the battlefield, and wallrunning supersoldiers interface straight with the grid.

Black Ops 3’s run is ambitious and strange, but it feels little similar the adjacent section successful the Black Ops saga and much of an optional epilogue, the benignant of ending you’d reload a prevention to avoid. There’s connective insubstantial to the larger mythos, but nary of the classical characters oregon grudges past the clip skip. Also, BLOPS being BLOPS, astir of the enactment turns retired to beryllium the integer experiences of a disembodied dying consciousness wrong a simulation.

While there’s nary crushed to uncertainty its canonicity, Black Ops 3 is not the absorption of Black Ops 7– The latest rubric has acold excessively overmuch unfinished concern successful the past to linger successful the far-flung future. Still, the dilatory drift towards sci-fi is undeniable, and it makes full sense: Black Ops has spent the past 15 years strip-mining the shadiness wars of the 20th century, and there’s truly lone 1 absorption near to go.

Will Black Ops suffer its psycho wetworks swagger if it moves beyond the existent day? Is determination inactive much foodstuff to compression from our clandestine past? Or is it clip for Treyarch and Raven Software to invent thing wholly new? After all, if we learned thing from Call of Duty: Black Ops, it’s that identities are thing but permanent.