Video Game / Black Ops

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Black Ops is a sub-series in the originally World War II-themed FPS series Call of Duty, developed by Treyarch (with help from Raven Software since Black Ops Cold War) and published by Activision, transitioning the setting to the Cold War after the first chronological entry, World at War was set in the eponymous World War II. The series is also notable for being the birthplace of Nazi Zombies, later known as Call of Duty: Zombies.

• Call of Duty: World at War (2008; Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC)
  • Call of Duty: World at War DS version (2008; Nintendo DS)
  • Call of Duty: World at War: Final Fronts (2008; PlayStation 2)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010; X360, PS3, Wii, PC)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops DS version (2010; NDS)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012; X360, PS3, Wii U, PC)
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified (2012; PlayStation Vita)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015; X360, Xbox One, PS3, PlayStation 4, PC)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (stylized as "Black Ops IIII"; 2018; XONE, PS4, PC; has no campaign mode)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020; XONE, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PlayStation 5, PC)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024; XONE, XSXS, PS4, PS5, PC)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (2025; XONE, XSXS, PS4, PS5, PC)

The tropes, Mason! What do they mean?!

• Anachronic Order: The series jumps from The '60s (Black Ops) into the (then) near-future with Black Ops II then far forward with Black Ops III, which is currently the installment set the furthest in the future. All subsequent games take place before III, meaning the sequence of the series is World at War, Black Ops, Cold War, 6, II^note The main story takes place in 2025 but has flashback missions set in The '80s, 7, 4, and finally III.
• Artifact Title: Zig Zagged. The titular "black ops" are covert military operations that can never be made public for political reasons. The first game really goes hog-wild with the premise of a secret war behind real events in US history. After that, though, the subseries veers wildly between "the history they don't print in the papers" and pure sci-fi faff about clones and cyborgs and evil AI that have nothing to do with geopolitics.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: While the US forces are generally the good guys, they usually tend to at least have a few members that commit incredibly dubious actions, sometimes with elements of Create Your Own Villain.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The games preceding the series were pretty light on the gore. World at War introduced all kinds of brutal gibs, wounds, and burns, all of which you can cause.
• Canon Welding: As of Cold War, the series shares a universe with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and Sledgehammer's two World War II entries.
• Chummy Commies: World at War depicts the Soviet Union in a sympathetic manner similar to the previous World War II titles, with protagonist Dimitri Petrenko and his immediate superior Sgt. Viktor Reznov going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Germans for what they did to the city Stalingrad. That said, see Dirty Communists below.
• CIA Evil, FBI Good: The CIA is consistently depicted committing highly questionable to outright illegal acts throughout the series while the FBI's only appearance in II has their director burnt to a crisp for removing Cordis Die propaganda, and their agents are playable as a heroic faction in multiplayer as they defend U.S. infrastructure from Cordis Die–backed mercenaries.
• Cluster F-Bomb: While Modern Warfare 2 had a Precision F-Strike (and a muffled one earlier in the story), this series dropped all the pleasantries and used the word "fuck" like it was going out of style. Most of them are courtesy of Frank Woods.
• Color Motif: Black, naturally, and orange starting with II. Notably, they share this motif with Treyarch's logo.
• Darker and Edgier: World at War is by far the most unflattering, gritty, bleak depiction of World War II in the series yet. Black Ops was also much more gruesome and hardcore compared to its sister series, Modern Warfare.
• Dirty Communists:
  • From Black Ops onward, the Soviet Union and many of its soldiers and politicians are depicted as corrupt, xenophobic, and opportunistic assholes no different from the Nazis that they had fought and vanquished during World War II.
  • Downplayed in World at War. During the Berlin Offensive, Soviet soldiers in 1945 are shown to be as merciless as the Nazis were when they were invading the Soviet Union in 1942, coldly gunning down surrendering, retreating, and wounded enemies without second thought.
• Guns Akimbo: It's on the cover. Of course, you yourself can wield many guns this way; usually handguns but the first game allowed you to do this with submachine guns and even a shotgun. Also in the first game, the level "Numbers", taking place on rainy Kowloon rooftops, features many akimbo weapons and even starts you off with dual CZ75s as a secondary, in a huge love-letter to John Woo.
• Historical Domain Character: A staple of the series starting with Black Ops.
• Manchurian Agent: Borderline Once an Episode.
  • Alex Mason was kidnapped by the Soviets and programmed with a numbers station to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Many signs point to this plan being successful; if he didn't personally pull the trigger, he made sure the actual triggerman got a line of sight. Viktor Reznov also programmed him to seek and kill Nikita Dragovich, Friedrich Steiner, and Lev Kravchenko, the three men who betrayed Reznov and killed his comrades. This was also successful, as just seeing any of these three men drive Mason into a murderous rage, and he manages to kill two of them (or all three if you don't resist his urges in Black Ops II).
  • Frank Woods wasn't traditionally brainwashed and programmed, but he was sufficiently tortured by Raul Menendez to the point where, much like Mason, he falls into an unstoppable, murderous rage whenever he sees Menendez. This screws him over royally when he sees Menendez in Nicaragua, instead of capturing him like instructed, he tosses a grenade at him, which misses him and ends up killing Menendez's beloved sister. This is where things get personal from both parties and truly when Menendez goes off the deep end. Menendez pays Woods in kind and plays off of his Berserk Button by kidnapping Alex's young son David, and forcing Hudson to give into his demands to ensure David's safety, kidnapping Alex and putting a bag over his head while Hudson lies and claims it's Menendez. Woods, eager as ever to kill Menendez, shoots "him" in the head as instructed, only to find out that he was duped into murdering his best friend.
  • David Mason also goes through a subliminal brainwashing from Menendez. Raul knew that the murder of his father would incite a need for vengeance in David, and that, if David gives in and decides to kill him, that his death would evoke the wrath of his followers and cause worldwide chaos. Sure enough, David kills Menendez, and riots break out, resulting in the White House being burned down, leading into the events of III.
  • "Bell", the protagonist of Cold War, turns out to be this in the endgame. Bell was actually the right-hand man of Perseus, the Big Bad, until a botched assassination attempt on Perseus' associate, Arash Kadivar, where Arash unexpectedly opened fire on Bell out of jealousy that they were so favored by Perseus. Russell Adler found Bell barely clinging to life and saw a golden opportunity to brainwash them into turning against Perseus and stopping his evil plan. In order to keep Bell "activated", he and Helen Park came up with the phrase, "We've got a job to do", which explains what previously seemed to be his catchphrase.
  • Adler himself ends up on the receiving end in Cold War's post-campaign story told in Multiplayer and Warzone. He gets kidnapped after a shootout with Vikhor "Stitch" Kuzmin and his Perseus troops in a mall in New Jersey, and gets programmed with a numbers station, much like Mason. When he's rescued by Woods and his team in Season 3, Stitch reveals to his lieutenants that it's already too late, and he has Adler wrapped around his finger. Sure enough, in Season 4, Adler goes rogue and steals a data recorder from a crashed satellite, lying and claiming that it was burnt up. In Season 5, Hudson discovers this along with Adler's plans to go to Verdansk to do God-knows-what and forces Woods to get Mason and his expertise in Deprogramming. Mason and Woods manage to track down and apprehend Adler, deprogramming him before he causes any more trouble.
• Mid-Season Twist:
  • Call of Duty: World at War ("Blood & Iron"): The Red Army enters Berlin.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops ("Project Nova"): Nova 6 is a nerve toxin developed by Nazis.
  • Black Ops II ("Karma"): Chloe is kidnapped. Her survival determines how the game ends.
  • Black Ops III ("Vengeance"): Goh Xiulan is killed and Kane is rescued.
  • Black Ops: Cold War ("Desperate Measures"): A list of deep cover Soviet agents is recovered.
  • Black Ops 6 ("Ground Control"): The Cradle bioweapon is in Vorkuta.
• The Stinger: World at War and Black Ops both included a post-credits scene depicting zombies crashing the party, throwing you into a game surviving as long as you can against the undead menace. Sadly, this was dropped from the following games.
• Weird Historical War: The Black Ops saga features the characters involved in things like World War II and Vietnam but always with a sci-fi twist such as brainwashing.