Black Ops Cold War Pre-Season 1 Update: The Quality-of-Life Patch

BOCW Update Prepare for Season One
The Pre-Season 1 Update brings some important fixes and adjustments. (Image Credit: Treyarch)

Although the integration of Black Ops Cold War into Warzone with Season 1 has been postponed from December 10 to December 16, a major quality of life update was released this morning. We'll be going over the most important patch notes.

Yesterday evening or this morning, depending on your time zone, the first really big update for Black Ops Cold War went live. As you would expect after Modern Warfare, the first big BOCW update requires a lot of disk space:

Before the start of Season 1, the new update brings some quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, game mode updates,and adjustments to weapons and scorestreaks. It also announces two more major updates for December 15 and 16.

In the following, we will only go through the most important changes; the complete patch notes can be found at Treyarch.

Patch Notes

Free Bundles

First up in the patch notes is an apology from Treyarch for the postponement of Season 1, and as a small compensation, all players who log into Black Ops Cold War between tonight, December 8 at 7 pm, and the start of Season 1 on December 16 will receive two free bundles. The "Field Research Bundle" and "Certified Bundle" each include an operator skin, a weapon blueprint, a crosshair, and a weapon charm.

New Playlist

With Motherland Moshpit a fresh playlist is live in BOCW. The new playlist features TDM, Domination, Kill Confirmed, and Hardpoint on the two Russian maps Moscow and Crossroads Strike. In addition, another Double XP weekend will start this Saturday, December 12, and will last until the start of Season 1.

Weapon and Game Mode Adjustments

  • Rocket and grenade launchers need only 2 instead of 3 kills without dying for camo challenges.
  • The spawns on Checkmate, Garrison, Crossroads Strike, Moscow and Miami have been adjusted.
  • Some zones in Hardpoint have been adjusted.
  • Reduced the Spawn Protection time in Fireteam.
  • Reduced spawn rate of Gunship, Chopper Gunner, and VTOL Escort in Fireteam.
  • Scorestreaks can now be adjusted in custom games. (Reset on death or deduct points on death etc.)
  • Exploding Care Package Scorestreaks no longer wound teammates.
  • Parachutes can now be triggered on Crossroads and Armada wherever it makes sense.
  • New Aiming Mode for helicopters.

Bugfixes

  • Various stability improvements for all consoles and PC across all modes.
  • Fix for crashes on consoles in connection with Ray Tracing.
  • Mastery Camos now receive progress as intended.
  • Players no longer die in Fireteam when they land on top of each other after an auto-deploy.
  • The Hind can no longer leave the map.
  • You can no longer be kicked for inactivity as a spectator.
  • Thermal visors now work in vehicles.
  • The Care Package Scorestreak no longer falls through the roof onto Checkmate.
  • The Trophy System now reliably destroys grenades etc.
  • Clean-Up and various fixes for finishing moves.
  • The Trapper Challenge in Zombie Mode can now be completed as planned.
  • The progress for the Mastery Camo in Zombie Mode is now displayed correctly.
  • Fixed some exploit areas in Zombie Mode.
  • Zombies no longer get stuck in their spawn area.

These were the most important changes in today's update. What do you think about the patch notes? Which problems should Treyarch tackle next? Let us know on Facebook!

The new gameplay trailer for Season 1 will be shown at the Game Awards on December 10:

More news and updates about Call of Duty, such as our setup guide for the AK-47, can be found on EarlyGame.

Original article by EarlyGame's Lukas Ballat.

Tasho Tashev

Law graduate from Sofia University turned gaming journalist. Gaming has always been a passion of mine since I was a kid (shocker I know) so it was only a matter of time before I started writing about it. My high-school...