The future is at war. And the past holds the key to everything. Call of Duty: Black Ops II is Treyarch’s landmark entry in the world’s most popular first-person shooter franchise — a bold, ambitious, and brilliantly executed military thriller that dared to do things with the Call of Duty formula that no entry before or since has quite matched, and delivered one of the most celebrated and enduringly beloved games in the entire series as a result. From its branching narrative campaign and iconic competitive multiplayer to its legendary Zombies mode, Black Ops II remains a high-water mark for the franchise and one of the finest first-person shooters ever made.
The year is 2025. The world stands on the brink of a new kind of war — one fought not with boots on the ground but with drones, autonomous weapons systems, and the terrifying power of whoever controls them. At the centre of the conflict is Raul Menendez — a charismatic, deeply motivated, and genuinely frightening antagonist whose personal vendetta against the United States has been decades in the making. As Alex Mason’s son David — codenamed Section — you hunt Menendez across the globe in a near-future conflict that is as technologically spectacular as it is geopolitically chilling. Flashback missions weave the story of the original Black Ops era into the present-day narrative, with the legendary Alex Mason returning to provide a deeply personal historical thread that connects both timelines into a cohesive and emotionally resonant whole.
What makes Black Ops II’s campaign truly landmark is its branching narrative structure — a revolutionary approach to Call of Duty storytelling that gives player choices genuine and dramatic consequences. Strike Force missions — optional real-time strategy sequences set in the near-future timeline — can be completed or failed with permanent consequences that ripple through the main narrative. Key decisions made at crucial story moments lead to dramatically different outcomes, different character fates, and multiple possible endings that range from triumphant to devastating. Black Ops II’s campaign rewards multiple playthroughs in a way that no Call of Duty before or since has attempted, and the quality of its storytelling — anchored by one of gaming’s finest villain performances — makes every playthrough genuinely compelling.
The multiplayer of Black Ops II is widely regarded as one of the greatest competitive online experiences in Call of Duty history — a perfectly balanced, endlessly replayable, and deeply customisable competitive ecosystem that defined the franchise’s online experience for a generation of players. The Pick 10 create-a-class system — a revolutionary approach to loadout building that gave every player ten points to allocate across weapons, attachments, perks, equipment, and wildcards in any combination they chose — remains one of the most elegant and empowering loadout systems ever designed for a competitive shooter. Leagues, ranked play, and a host of competitive game modes delivered a structured and rewarding competitive experience that kept players engaged for years.
Zombies mode — Treyarch’s beloved cooperative survival experience — reaches new heights of ambition and content in Black Ops II. Multiple full Zombies maps, each with their own unique setting, easter egg questline, and cast of characters, deliver dozens of hours of cooperative survival content that ranges from the iconic TranZit — an enormous, interconnected map of extraordinary ambition — to the fan-favourite Mob of the Dead, a Zombies experience of such cinematic quality, such atmospheric storytelling, and such mechanical excellence that it is widely considered the finest Zombies map ever made. Grief mode pits two teams of survivors against each other and the zombie horde simultaneously in one of cooperative gaming’s most chaotic and entertaining competitive experiences.
On PC, Call of Duty: Black Ops II delivers a smooth and visually sharp first-person shooter experience with support for high resolutions, high frame rates, and the kind of precise mouse and keyboard control that makes competitive multiplayer sing on PC hardware.
Game Features
- Landmark branching campaign with player choices that shape the story and its endings
- Play as David Mason hunting the iconic villain Raul Menendez across a near-future conflict
- Flashback missions featuring the legendary Alex Mason in the original Black Ops era
- Strike Force missions — optional RTS sequences with permanent narrative consequences
- Revolutionary Pick 10 create-a-class multiplayer loadout system
- Iconic competitive multiplayer widely regarded as one of Call of Duty’s finest
- Multiple full Zombies maps including the legendary Mob of the Dead
- TranZit — an enormous and ambitious interconnected Zombies experience
- Grief mode — competitive cooperative Zombies for two teams simultaneously
- From Treyarch — available now on Steam for PC
