The Call of Duty: Black Ops series began in 2010. The series has released five major games and boasts over 100 years of gaming history. The series features real-life events such as the Bay of Pigs Invasion and Operation Desert Storm, and dozens of locations are explored, ranging from Vietnam to Reverse Island and everything in between. The story begins in the 1960s and continues into the distant future of 2065. Players must deal with both human soldiers and dangerous robots.

In the campaign of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Raven Software took players back to the 1980s to explore a part of the Cold War not previously touched upon in the series. The 2020 release adds another important piece of storytelling to the long timeline of Call of Duty: Black Ops, making the story worth a fresh recap. However, players should prepare for a wild adventure as every Black Ops game has to take some major twists and turns.

Call of Duty: Black Ops – 1961-1968

In the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, the first game in the series and storyline, players take on the role of Alex Mason. Born in Alaska and raised to utilize his survival skills, the character’s survival background is shown throughout the game. Call of Duty: Black Ops begins with Mason strapped to a chair and being interrogated by CIA member Jason Hudson, who appears to be just as confused as the player, presumably.

As the game progresses, players learn that Alex Mason was brainwashed by Nikita Dragovich, a Russian terrorist who used sleeper agents to spread lethal gas across the United States. Dragovich also hired Alex Mason to kill President JFK, although it remains unclear whether he carried out the assassination attempt. In any case, someone tampers with the original brainwashing process by having Mason’s already rewired brain further reprogrammed by Call of Duty: World at War character Viktor Reznov.

After Reznov’s best friend is poisoned by Dragovich and Nova 6, Mason is given several names. As Mason goes through the list, he becomes convinced that it is Reznov who is killing all the targets and exacting his revenge. In fact, it is Mason himself who is committing the murders, and a major twist in the game reveals that Reznov died earlier in the game’s Vorkuta level. After learning of Alex Mason’s brainwashing, Hudson and the tortured protagonist stop Dragovich before he can commit a war crime.

The story is packed with exciting moments and great performances, but the mind-blowing twist is what makes the game’s campaign so fondly remembered. It seems the original Black Ops hasn’t been forgotten by its creators either, since Treyarch turned the highly meme-able line “What do the numbers mean?” from Call of Duty: Black Ops War into a gunfight map.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War – 1981-1984

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is the latest release in the series, but the second game in this timeline. As a direct sequel to the original game, Raven Software’s sequel takes liberties with real-world history to give the characters tough challenges to overcome. The game centers on Russian agents rumored to have been active in the real Cold War, but also introduces the highly unrealistic Operation Greenlight. In the story, atomic bombs are placed across Europe as a safety measure in case the United States is defeated, and players must stop Perseus from detonating these atomic bombs.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s campaign contains a lot that doesn’t feel like Call of Duty, and while most of these are positive changes, one controversial decision is that players create their own characters. The decision to operate under the codename “Bell” and not speak during the game’s story feels odd given Alex Mason’s role in the narrative; the former protagonist has been relegated to a supporting role, playable in some missions but largely unremarkable. Still, the game offers an excellent twist that serves as a reversal of the original Mason surprise, tasking the player-created Bell with making a monumental decision. There are two very different decisions that lead to entirely different final missions, but in the canonical ending, Perseus’ plan fails and the villain escapes.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – 1986-1989, 2025

2012’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 pushed the Black Ops series into the future, followed by Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Attention was focused on Frank Woods. Featuring an outstanding performance from original Woods voice actor James C. Burns, the campaign revolves around the character’s relationship with new antagonist Raul Menendez (also played incredibly well by actor Kamaal de los Reyes). After Woods is rescued by Alex Mason in Angola, the two embark on a quest to track Menendez down. However, a stray grenade kills Woods’ villainous sister, after which Menendez goes on the run and seeks revenge on Woods.

Menendez gets revenge by tricking Woods into shooting Alex Mason, permanently crippling him after performing the foolish act. Menendez then tortures former CIA official Jason Hudson in front of Woods, killing Hudson with his dead sister’s medallion, a scene of violence that comes to a gruesome end. The story continues in 2025, with an aged Menendez leading a terrorist movement called “Cordis Die”. While seeking advice from Frank Woods, Alex is finally able to stop Mason’s son, David Menendez. In the canonical ending, the big baddie is finally killed. However, like the multiple endings of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, there are multiple variations of the ending of Black Ops 2, some of which have Menendez ultimately finishing off Woods, and others in which Alex Mason is accidentally killed and survives.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 – 2045

The unfinished story of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is arguably the strangest addition to the Call of Duty: Black Ops timeline. It includes cutscenes and radios that explain the strange tale. Special HQ mission cutscenes were added, as the proper Black Ops 4 campaign was canceled. Essentially, the missions were tutorials for each character and nothing special, but the stories told within them definitely stood out. This futuristic plot follows Alex Mason’s granddaughter Savannah and is set in 2045, featuring members of the Mason family using advanced technology to resurrect the dead.

Using the term “prototype” for clones confirms that the game’s battle royale mode Blackout is a testing ground for these resurrected soldiers. Savannah brings back her grandfather and his best friend, Frank Woods, and has an awkward romance with the latter. Woods, at the behest of his girlfriend, attempts to brainwash the resurrected Mason into tricking him into killing his other granddaughter, Jessica Mason. Savannah is conflicted in a dispute over the ethics of the original cloning process, having already failed to kill Jessica once. The story ends with an injured Jessica rallying together Black Ops 4’s multiplayer specialists to battle Savannah and her resurrected clones of her old campaign characters. However, since the Black Ops series goes back in time, it seems unlikely that this cliffhanger over Alex Mason’s bickering grandchildren will ever be resolved.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – 2065

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is chronologically the last game in the long Black Ops timeline, and its story is the most misunderstood. While the game was widely praised for its zombies content and gave players a memorable DLC season that concluded with the fan-favorite collection Zombies Chronicles, the campaign was largely ignored. While certainly flawed and bearing no relation to previous Black Ops games aside from a brief mention of Menendez and Cordis Die, this futuristic title offers a very complex story. Essentially, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s campaign tells two stories in one, but its true narrative is hidden in the text that scrolls at the start of each mission.

The campaign the player sees is actually a simulation recreated by a flawed AI called Corvus, which shows the player fragments of the memories of supporting character John Taylor. The missions are also out of sequence, meaning fans will have to do a lot of research if they want to know the game’s true story. The plot concerns how the CIA uses the Nova 6 for its own purposes and how the organization develops a foolproof way to spy on American citizens, which puts a unique twist on the show’s usual “America is good” storyline. While the game’s complex narrative process isn’t for everyone, there’s a lot more to Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s layered narrative than first meets the eye.