Six Games of Secrets and Sabotage: The Call of Duty Black Ops Timeline (BO1 - BO6)
- Liam A Bartlett
- Nov 8, 2025
- 7 min read
From Black Ops 1 through Black Ops 6. Expect conspiracies, double-crosses, chemical weapons, brainwashing, time-jumps and more. (Spoilers ahead.)
1. Black Ops 1 (2010)
The ride begins in the early 1960s during the height of the Cold War: our protagonist is Alex Mason, a CIA operative alongside Frank Woods and Joseph Bowman. They join one of the most infamous real-world events: the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (April 1961). Mason and company assist Cuban exiles and attempt an assassination of Fidel Castro — though crucially they kill his body double. From there it goes off the rails: Mason is captured and handed over to the Soviet general Nikita Dragovich, ending up in the harsh prison camp Vorkuta. In prison Mason meets former-Red-Army soldier Viktor Reznov. Reznov spills his backstory: in 1945 Reznov and Dimitri Petrenko (from earlier games) were ordered by Dragovich and Colonel Kravchenko to retrieve a Nazi scientist (Friedrich Steiner) and a chemical weapon called “Nova 6”.
Mason eventually breaks out (with Reznov’s help) and returns to the U.S., only to be used as a pawn in a psychological program called the “Numbers” program: Mason’s mind has been tampered with via brain-washing so that he can be triggered to assassinate high-value targets when certain number sequences are broadcast.
The finale: Mason goes on a mission aboard the Russian ship Rusalka (in the Gulf of Mexico), thwarting the broadcast of the Numbers Program and ends up facing Dragovich underwater — and drowns him. What makes this first game interesting:
The blended mix of real-history (Bay of Pigs, Cold War tensions) and pulp-espionage (brainwashing, sleeper agents).
The recurring motif of mind control, betrayal, and unstable allegiances.
Reznov’s pervasive influence and the shadows of WWII in the Cold War setting.Think of it as the origin story of the Black Ops franchise: character introductions, conspiracies, and the scale of things going wrong.
2. Black Ops Cold War (2020)
Jump ahead to January 1981. This game functions as both a sequel to Black Ops 1 and a prequel bridging toward Black Ops 2. The core team now includes Mason, Woods, plus new operative Russell Adler. Their mission: hunt down a shadowy Soviet super-spy known as Perseus, believed to be orchestrating a plot to destabilise the West. The campaign begins with missions in Amsterdam, Turkey, Vietnam and ends up deep in Soviet territory.
Key moments:
In Turkey, they intercept Arash Kadivar and find out Perseus was behind the Iran hostage crisis–style event.
The game plays heavily with memories, betrayal, and the idea of who’s pulling the strings.
The ending leaves things ambiguous: Perseus vanishes, Adler some suspicion, and the future of the Black Ops operatives is uncertain. If BO1 was about personal brain-washing and chemical weapons, Cold War broadens the scope: global conspiracies, historical figures, and deeper layers of deception.
3. Black Ops 2 (2012)
This one splits its storyline into two distinct eras: the late 1980s (1986-89) and the near future (2025). Part A – 1980sMason and Woods are back. They track the infamous arms-dealer/tactical terrorist Raul Menendez, whose vendetta against Woods begins after Woods accidentally kills Menendez’s sister during an operation. Menendez begins building his hatred and preparing for the long game. Part B – 2025. Now we shift to Mason’s son, David “Section” Mason, a U.S. Navy SEAL. Menendez is now the figurehead of a global populist terrorist organisation called “Cordis Die”. He uses cyber-warfare, drone attacks, rare-earths black-mails, and advanced tech to wage a war on the U.S. and China. David Mason must stop Menendez’s plan of triggering a second Cold War. Why this is important:
It cements the father/son theme: the sins of the father (Mason, Woods) affecting the next generation.
A major jump from Cold War spy thriller into near-future warfare: drones, cyberattacks, Hi-tech infiltration.
Menendez emerges as one of the major recurring villains in the Black Ops mythos. It’s a turning point: the Black Ops story goes from historic espionage to a canvas of futuristic global war.
4. Black Ops 3 (2015)
Now we jump far ahead to 2065 (about 40 years after BO2). Warfare is dominated by robotics, cybernetics, Direct Neural Interfaces (DNI) and the line between human and machine has blurred. The main story: You play as “The Player” (augmented soldier) and investigate the disappearance of a special team in Singapore. You’re linked via DNI to a global conflict involving a rogue AI known as Corvus and Commander John Taylor. Eventually the big twist is revealed: you died during surgery and much of what you experienced is inside a digital consciousness. Taylor regains control, purges Corvus, and in the end both he and the Player fade from existence.
What to take away:
This game ramps up the sci-fi: the nature of consciousness, identity, digital realities.
The franchise now isn’t just about spies and chemical weapons—it’s about future tech, AI wars and existential threats.If you think the earlier ones were wild, this one really leans into “what the heck is real?” territory.
5. Black Ops 6 (2024)
After a cut-in of BO4 (which is mostly multiplayer) and other branches, Black Ops 6 returns to a past era (early 1990s) and focuses on rogue CIA operatives hunting down a clandestine organisation called Pantheon.
Key plot beats
It’s 1991, around the time of Operation Desert Storm. CIA operatives Troy Marshall and veteran Frank Woods are pulled into a mission: extract a high-ranking Iraqi minister, Saeed Alawi, at the Kuwait border. But things go wrong when Alawi claims he is targeted by Pantheon.
Pantheon is revealed to have infiltrated parts of the CIA. Woods and Marshall are suspended and forced to operate off the grid. They must build their own team of rogue agents (including technical genius Felix Neumann and assassin Sevati Dumas) under the guidance of their handler Jane Harrow.
Rival agent Russell Adler (yes, returning) features again: he executed Alawi, then lets himself be captured while cryptically telling Woods: “Bishop takes Rook”. Waters get murky.
Chronologically, BO6 slots between the late-1980s sections of BO2 and the 2025 future missions. Why this is exciting:
We’re back to more grounded, earlier-era missions (Gulf War, early 90s), giving some breathing room between the intense future tech of BO3 and the Cold War espionage.
It bridges a gap in the lore: what is Woods doing post-Cold War? How did the CIA’s “Black Ops” structure mutate? What lies under Pantheon’s influence?
6. What’s the thread tying it all together?
Characters persist: Woods, Mason, Hudson, Adler—these names crop up again and again. The operative friendships and betrayals accumulate.
Conspiracies within conspiracies: “Who do you really work for?” is a recurring question. From biochemical weapons (Nova 6) to sleeper agents, to AI war, to rogue paramilitaries – the operatives are often pawns.
War changing shape: The series starts with Cold War covert ops, moves into near-future tech, AI, neural implants, and then goes back to earlier 1990s with a fresh rogue-agent mindset. The timeline is non-linear but gives a full sweep of modern warfare evolution.
Mind games and identity: Brainwashing (BO1), memory manipulation (Cold War), artificial consciousness (BO3) — what is real and what is manufactured is a major theme.
The “Black Ops” tag means “deniable, dirty, hidden”: These operatives operate in the shadows, often cut loose by their agencies, forced rogue.
7. Play order & chronology note
One thing to know: the release order of these games is not strictly their chronological in-universe order. For example:
BO1 (1960s) → BO Cold War (1981) → BO2 (1980s & future 2025) → BO6 (early 1990s) → BO3 (2065). What that means: you might jump around eras depending on what snippet of the story you want.
One Redditor put it: “The order is; WAW, BO1, Cold War, BO2, BO6, BO4, BO3… it’s just confusing.” (Reddit) If you just want narrative clarity, I’d suggest: play or recap BO1 → Cold War → BO2 (1980s) → BO6 → BO2 (2025) → BO3. Then you’ll see the story of Mason/Woods/Adler from beginning to end.
8. Fun highlights & favourite moments
The Bay of Pigs scene in BO1 where you kill Castro’s body-double (classic).
Woods forcing Russian roulette (“You can’t kill me!”)—an instant moment of badass.
The split-timeline in BO2: watching past events feed into future consequences.
The AI twist in BO3: “You died, and everything has been in a digital mind” — existential yet ridiculously over-the-top.
BO6 returning to the Gulf War era—and showing the “rogue agent vs agency” dynamic in full force.
9. What remains unanswered & what to watch for
What exactly is Pantheon in BO6? What is their endgame beyond CIA infiltration?
Where does Woods stand morally by the end of BO6? He’s always played the loyal soldier, but these rogue missions test that loyalty.
In BO3, the boundaries between human and machine blur. How much of that future tech will loop back to affect the earlier games (via flashbacks/spinoffs)?
How do the choices in BO2’s future timeline (2025) play out in the larger universe? Many endings were possible; canonical paths are a bit fuzzy.
As the series continues, will it keep playing in the far future like BO3, or will it circle back to hidden histories?
10. Final thoughts
The “Black Ops” saga is wild. What started as Cold War spy-thriller in BO1 has morphed into a sprawling epic traversing decades, technologies, and moral ambiguity. If you’re up for it, you’ll ride with Mason, Woods, Adler and more as they wrestle with their pasts, agencies that betrayed them, and a changing world of warfare.
Whether you’re in it for the covert ops thrills, the sci-fi tech leaps, or the character arcs of loyalty and vengeance—the Black Ops story delivers. And the beauty is: you don’t need to start with every game to get the core—just pick up BO1, then Cold War, then BO2 and BO6, you’ll hit many of the key beats.