call of duty black ops cold war gameplay part 1

It was vital that as well as complementing the more action-based gameplay, our cinematic content communicated the global feelings of unease and tension that were so rife at the time.

More than anything else, this project was about telling a story that goes far beyond physical conflict. Our aim with this was to make the player feel like they're observing through the eyes of a nameless character without giving away too much detail or control the air of secrecy this creates is key to the Cold War narrative. While the microfiche helped us portray the rough style and frantic movement in 2010's Black Ops game, having a more grounded viewpoint this time helped us to set a far slower pace. Colour grading also helped us to create powerful atmospheres at other stages: cool blues for modern-day cinematics and reds for the more intense brainwashing scenes, for example.Ĭamera movement played a key part in creating the right feeling for Black Ops Cold War, too. We had to portray the global nature of this Cold War story without explicitly giving away the location of the lightbox or television screen at the heart of each scene.Īt stages when the player should believe they're in a certain location or time period, we had to imply it with abstract details rather than complete environment changes: the presence of a smoking cigar helped to set scenes in Cuba, while sepia tones provided a subtle ageing effect that takes the player back two decades to a Vietnam flashback. Working within similar spaces throughout might have helped with consistency but it also forced us to pay extremely close attention to the details within our cinematics.

The campaign mode shifts quickly between various times and locations across the world, but grounds itself using very similarly styled safehouse environments. This process undoubtedly took more time and effort but the end result makes for a much more immersive and real player experience.īoundaries were also provided for us by the game's storyline. So we instead chose to recreate the desired layering and transfer effects physically on our primary delivery method, the lightbox. Given the clear design links between the game's period and today, it would have been easy to fall back on 1980s-inspired filters and effects but we were determined to make our cinematic content as authentic, environmentally engaging and Black Ops-relevant as possible.

Call of duty black ops cold war gameplay part 1