Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Call of Duty: Black Ops II carries Treyarch's series into a near-future, 21st-century Cold War, where technology and weapons have converged into a new generation of warfare. The campaign moves between the covert wars of the 1980s and the year 2025, following Alex Mason and his son David as Raul Menendez turns a personal grudge into a global threat. Around that story sit a reworked competitive multiplayer and a full Zombies mode, and together they make one of the most complete packages the series has delivered.

A Campaign Across Two Eras

The story is told by Frank Woods, an old man by 2025, looking back on missions with Alex Mason and Jason Hudson through Angola, Afghanistan, Nicaragua and Panama in the 1980s. Those memories feed into the present day, where David Mason, call sign Section, and his JSOC team hunt Menendez and his populist movement, Cordis Die, as it reaches for control of the world's automated arsenal. The story is as personal as it is military, and Menendez stands as one of the series' most memorable villains, driven by motives the game takes the time to explain. Jack Wall's score, with a main theme from Trent Reznor, carries it all.

Choices That Change the Outcome

Black Ops II was the first Call of Duty to let its story branch. Decisions made in the moment, such as whether to pull a trigger, who to trust and what to pursue, carry forward and reshape later missions, the fate of key characters and the ending itself. Strike Force missions add another layer. These optional operations let you command drones, soldiers and vehicles from an overhead tactical view or drop straight into any unit on the field, and the results, win or lose, shift the balance of the wider conflict.

Multiplayer Built Around Pick 10

Pick 10 Create-a-Class Every loadout is built from ten points you spend however you like across weapons, attachments, perks, lethal and tactical equipment and Wildcards. You can leave the secondary behind to afford more perks, or spend a Wildcard to run three attachments on your primary. No two classes need to look alike. Scorestreaks Rewards are earned through score rather than kills alone, so capturing objectives, defending teammates and shooting down enemy air support all count toward your next streak. The system favors players who work the objective, not just the ones padding a kill count. A Near-Future Arsenal Weapons and gear reflect the 2025 setting, from the millimeter-wave scope that picks out targets through cover to Hunter Killer drones, the Dragonfire quadrotor and the Guardian microwave turret. The result is a multiplayer game that plays noticeably differently from the Cold War firefights of its predecessor.

Zombies Takes to the Road

Treyarch's Zombies mode reaches its largest scale yet with Green Run. At its center is TranZit, where up to four survivors ride a robot-driven bus across a fog-choked countryside linking a bus depot, diner, farm, power station and town. You build equipment from parts scattered along the route, avoid the Denizens that lurk in the fog, and dig into the secrets players have spent years unpicking. Survival drops you into a single location to see how many rounds you can last, while Grief sets two teams of survivors against each other, each trying to be the last one standing while making life harder for the other side.

Step Into 2025

Maybe you are here for Menendez and the choices that decide how his story ends. Maybe it is the fast pace of a Pick 10 match, or one more long night on the bus with three friends. Black Ops II rewards all of them. Step into Section's boots, make the calls nobody else can make for you, and find out how far one man's revenge can reach.