Everything we know about Black Ops 2 (Short notes) [Updated 10th August]

[Nachos]

This list is very long annoying to read, you probably wanna Ctrl+F and search for whatever you are looking for.
Also feel free to ask anything about the game in this thread and I will try to answer.


Campaign
“Pushing the boundaries of what fans have come to expect from the record-setting entertainment franchise, Call of Duty®: Black Ops 2 propels players into a near future, 21st Century Cold War, where technology and weapons have converged to create a new generation of warfare”

-A little more the Decade out.
-Lots of research to make a more plausible ”near future”
-Branching story lines.
-Non linear Gameplay.
-Horse back riding is confirmed
-Very futuristic technology
-Playing in Los Angeles
-According to reveal trailer game takes place in 2025
-Game will change between 1980s and 2025s time frame. Mostly in 2025 though
-It is a direct sequel to Black Ops.
-Mason didn’t actually kill JFK, given that he’s out in the field in Black Ops II.
-Narrated by Black Ops character Frank Woods, now an old man. Frank didn’t die in Black Ops
-In the 80′s timeline, players will take on the role of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason.
-In 2025, players will take on the role Alex Mason [David Mason's son]. Father/Son Relationship will be a part of story
-Plot is fictional second Cold War happening between China and the US due to the scarcity of Rare Earth Elements used to make new tech devices.
-In real life, China currently controls 95% of rare earth elements.
-A good deal of the 1980′s action will take place during proxy wars in Central America.
-The villain will be a man named Raul Menendez. He is controlling drones to create this Cold War.
-The 1980′s missions will chronicle what started Martinez on setting his current-day plans in motion.
-The story is was written from the ground up by Dark Knight and Batman Begins co-writer David Goyer.
-Menendez has hacked into the US’s unmanned drones and unleashed an attack on Los Angeles.
-There will be at least one female character in the game, a pilot named Anderson
-The president in 2025 is also a woman, and appeared in the “Attack on LA” mission.
-David Mason’s sidekick is a soldier named Nelson
-The game will be using full-body performance capture to place its actors in the game;
-Both male and female actors captured with the sort of clarity we’ve come to expect from games using full-performance capture.
-Each person will have a different ending depending upon how you chose to play the game.
-Every mission has many alternative ways to play it. You choose. You play.
-A feature called “Overwatch” mode; You can play from the air or the ground. Drive/operate vehicles.
-Snipers have awesome optic. You can see through materials w/ the scope. Electronic Charge to penetrate.
-Worked with guys named Peter Singer on how to make futuristic settings
-CLAW is a “futuristic enemy “
-Talks about Overwatch mode – “live, tactical overview of the map”
-One mission takes place right outside of the E3 area
-Map/Mission shown to OXM was in Keppel Terminal at the Port of Singapore
-Mason is on the US President Security Detail
-Menedez has full control of automated fleet
-President needs to be evacuated
-Look through walls w/ certain scopes
-There will be flashbacks to the 1980s as Woods recalls his maneuvers with Alex Mason
-Lt. Col. Oliver North is helping Treyarch w/ Black Ops 2.
-Rafacz [Treyarch Director for Communication] explained Geo-Policitcal wrapper by saying, “Well, you know, it’s still in development. So it’s too early to kind of talk about how many endings there are, but it’s safe to say that throughout the course of the campaign, you will have the opportunity to play a handful of Strike Force levels. I think the important thing here – and you touched on this – is that it’s the geo-political wrapper,” Rafacz explained, “We will all share that same story, we are playing that same gift, we just get different colour wrapping paper.”
-Villain Trailer gives you a glimpse of the main villain ‘Raul Menendez’.
-Confirmed: Tony Todd is playing as a General in Black Ops II
-Trent Reznor is composing the theme for Black Ops II

Strike Force Missions Details *Part of certain Campaign missions only:
At the highest level, Strike Force missions introduce non-linearity to the campaign structure. These missions are “proxy wars” in the larger global conflict of 2025, that are presented at various points in the campaign. The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) will address you and give you a choice between missions. Once you make your selection, you’ll be inserted into the action. When you play, you’ll either complete the mission successfully or – in a first for Call of Duty – you could fail. Either way, the game and story will continue on, but the outcome of that Strike Force mission will shape the story arc of the Cold War that surrounds you. When playing a Strike Force level, players will be able to take control of the battle like never before: play in overwatch, set waypoints, issue commands to your squad and take control of various soldiers and drones – play with all the toys – whatever you want to do to complete the mission. If you wanted to, you could play it in a traditional Call of Duty style with weapon in hand. You can play Strike Force levels however you want.

-Treyarch is aiming to change that with Black Ops II with the inclusion of “Strike Force,” a new, open-ended game-mode that’s folded into the single-player campaign.
-Strike Force missions will be woven into the core single-player campaign, and will present themselves as various black ops missions available around the globe.
-Players won’t be able to play all of the strike force missions in a single playthrough.
-Depending on the outcome of a given strike force mission, the story will change. “You’re going to choose a mission,” said Lamia, “and that’s a branch for the story. Say there’s three missions out there—you’re not going to go back and play all of them; the story goes on. If you die on a strike force mission, you die in the story.”
-The playable characters don’t feature in the Strike Force missions.
-Strike Force allows players to control squads of troops, giving follow/hold commands with the shoulder buttons.
-Strike Force also allows a zoomed-out command view via an unmanned aerial drone that lets you to set waypoints for your units to achieve shifting goals.
-Strike Force will allow you to control armed aerial drones, armed land-drones, and unarmed aerial drones in addition to being able to hop to the viewpoint of any of the soldiers in your squad.

KNOWN/DISCUSSED MISSIONS:
-Protect P.O.T.U.S- Location: LA – With downtown Los Angeles under attack from rogue drones, players take control of David Mason, son of Alex Mason, as he sits in with a convoy racing down the freeway. This isn’t any ordinary assignment though, Mason is charged with escorting the President of the United States to safety. The trusted soldier lays out his plan to the President, get to the “Prom Night” shelter underneath the Bonaventure Hotel. But before the group has any more time to think, drone attacks hit their convoy and leave them wrecked along on the highway. Coming to after the startling crash, Mason scrambles to a nearby SAM Turret, locking onto multiple drones and downing them in a burst of precision missile strikes. After dealing with the immediate threat, Mason meets back up with the group further ahead on the highway. Players are then given an option on how to approach the next sequence: Stay on the highway and provide sniper fire from above, or rappel down with the President and directly engage the hostile troops. Choosing to stick up top allows Mason to command a powerful new weapon, the Sniper Storm rifle. Featuring an X-ray scope and a five-bar gauge, this sniper rifle is able to charge up and put successive rounds through cover, downing enemies that would normally evade gunfire. Moving down the ruined streets of Los Angeles proves to be a dangerous trek, with hostile troops around every barrier. To help clear the path, Mason can command a squad of quadrotors with his I.W.M.D. (Interactive Wrist Mounted Display). Directing the squad towards enemy positions, Mason moves through tightly held positions with some much needed firepower on his side. Also assisting him is Anderson, a female pilot in control of a FA-38 jet. Anderson provides aerial reconnaissance for Mason as he makes his way along the streets. But when injuries force her to land her aircraft, it’s up to Mason to provide support from above. Hovering over the reformed convoy, Mason clears the road with effectively placed missiles and cannons. With a pack of drones closing in though, Mason breaks away from the convoy and engage the enemy squadrons in an all-out dogfight. The drones attempt to repel Mason’s fire with deployed countermeasures, but the FA-38′s Sky Buster missiles lock-on and break through their defenses. Suddenly the on-board computer warns of an incoming drone. With barely enough time to react, Mason manages to eject from the jet just before it impacts the enemy fighter. As he floats back down to Earth, aircraft continue their engagements above, while a still-compromised city awaits Mason below.

-Singapore Strike Fore Mission- Location: Singapore – In our Singapore Strike Force level, you’re a member of a squad whose objective is to disable a missile defense shield that is protecting a shipment that cannot be allowed to leave the Harbor. It’s your job to clear the way so that the rest of your team can take it out.

-Strike Force Mission Yemen- Location: Yemen – not much was discussed, except for this picture.


Multiplayer

-Black Ops 2 MP will be fully revealed at Gamescom, and ATVI will be live streaming it!

-Vahn has confirmed fading objective/bomb makers
-Rockets that lock onto the Dragonfire
-Sniper rifles without scopes spotted
-2 attachments for secondary weapons
-At 0:18 in bottom right, you have option to ‘select fire’.
-Bolt action sniper
-Laser pointer
-You can plant the riot shield to the ground and shoot through it
-3 attachments for primary
-6 perks can be used at a time
-Riot shield is back
-Change zoom level
-A.G.R is brought in via Care Package
-Fly a drone into the enemy [killstreak]
-Turret that causes some sort of wave – called ‘Guardian’
-Quadrotor [called Dragonfire] can be used as a killstreak
-A.G.R – new Assault Drone like killstreak
-Lot’s of airstrikes
-Dogs are returning
-New Equipment ‘Shock Charge’
-Knife appears to be a equipment
-C4 is [of course] returning
-Tomahawk is back
-See through smoke with certain attachments
-Tactical Insertions are returning
-’Multi-team TDM’ was mentioned
-New HUD
-Dolphin Dive is returning
-Sights to see through barriers
-Max level is [not confirmed 100%] 55.
-15th prestige logo from Black Ops 1 appeared
-It appears that custom emblems are returning
-Accolades are returning, shown was: ‘Flyswatter’, ‘Revenge’, ‘Bloodthirsty’.
-Bottom left corner shows how many points needed to win the game
-eSports sections appears, ‘spectator-only’ mode also shown. Looks to be dramatically updated to allow better viewing angles.
-Scopes are more ‘boxed’ in shape.

MULTIPLAYER MAPS:
-Aftermath- takes place in Los Angeles; The Verge said,“The other map is downtown Los Angeles following the single-player campaign’s drone attack. On a street sign are the words Figueroa. This is literally where E3 takes place every summer”.
-Socotra Island- takes place in an island in Yemen
-Nuketown 2025- Now reimagined in a 60′s depiction of the “Model Home of the Future”, Nuketown 2025 is set to take that familiar close-quarters chaos into the future.
-Turbine- Map shown in MP Reveal trailer.
-Map that takes place in Singapore was shown in the trailer

KILL STREAKS:
- A.G.R- this is the assault drone from the campaign
-Dragonfire- Quadrotor Drone renamed
-Lightning Strike- seen in reveal trailer
-Escort Drone- seen in left part of screen at :39 of reveal trailer

GAME MODES:
-Multi-Team TeamDeath Match- Mentioned in the reveal trailer

********************************

*DETAILS BEFORE THE TRAILER*
-Vahn has tweeted that in 10 days [from Aug 5th] he will reveal everything on the MP
-Black Ops II Multiplayer will be PLAYABLE at GameStop EXPO 2012 on Aug 29th. Details here.
-David Vonderhaar tweeted: “After months of living with the denial of a failed prototype, I think I am happy with the design for unlocks & progression systems.”
-David Vonderhaar has tweeted the Black Ops 2 MP details in coming in the week of August 13.
-Treyarch Studio Head in interview on Roll Call on Call of Duty ELITE, “MP in Black Ops 2 is Pushing Boundaries. It will have its own Reveal. The devs are looking at what the community wants and watching all systems. Can’t wait to reveal .”
-David Vonderhaar tweeted that a MUTE ALL but party option is coming.
-Multiplayer director David Vonderhaar relayed that the new approach they are taking is “One size does not fit all.” That means, he said, that there is no one way to play a Call of Duty game. So, they’re pulling back features like create-a-class, killstreaks, and other features and reexamining them, challenging their assumptions of “what cows are sacred.”
-Multiplayer will take place entirely in the year 2025—there will be no multiplayer missions set in the 80′s.
-They are taking the E-sports community very seriously. In part, that means that they’re focusing on making the game more fun to watch as a spectator. Hopefully that means super cute, colorful uniforms!
-There will be NO beta
-“Looking at every system and really innovating on that gameplay mode that I am looking forward to talk about later”
-Heavy focus on lighting in maps
-David Vonderhaar once said in a behind the scenes video, “create a class is sweet.. choose what’s the most important things to you, and forget about the things that are not important…This will open up doors for playstyles you have not seen. It’s going to be fantastic.
-NO Call of Duty XP this year: “Each year we try to surprise and delight our fans and this year we are planning to host somenew experiences for our fans around the globe including at Gamescom later this summer in Cologne, Germany. While its possible we may host another XP in the future, we don’t have plans to hold the event this year.” – ATVI PR
-New killstreak Selection layout
-Select Fire Option
-C.L.A.W. and FA-38 Killstreak Option
-The XM8 is now called the “M8A1″
-Highest rank before prestige is “55″

Create-A-Class 2.0 *details were leaked by an unofficial podcast:
-10 point allocation system replaces primary/secondary/grenades slot system Guns, attachments, equipment, perks take up allocation points.
*ex.) you could have 2 primary weapons which would use most of your points and only have 1 perk.
-Taken out “slot system”.
-Option to start with no weapons, load up on perks and equipment.
-You start out with 10 choices/options per class.
-New wager match variations.
-New “Friend/Foe identifier” attachment.


Zombies

-Zombie IS returning in Black Ops 2! Mark Lamia, Treyarch Head, ” Biggest and most ambitious Zombies ever.”
-Zombies will definitely be back in Black Ops II, and will feature all new modes that are more fleshed-out than ever.
-”There will be more zombies and more modes; just more.”
-The zombies are “In the multiplayer engine.” “If you think about all of the things we can do with our multiplayer engine,” Lamia said, “You can start to think about how we might be looking at this.” Okay then!
-“Our zombies fans want more zombies, they literally want more zombies and they want more ways to play. They want bigger maps, they want even more interesting things to do inside these levels. So we are crafting new worlds, creating new game modes and bigger worlds.”
-“We’ve actually put [zombies] inside of our multiplayer engine and it’s capable of doing twice as many zombies, twice as many co-op players. There are actually new modes,” says Lamia. “There’s classic mode that you guys are used to but there are going to be new modes. [Twice as many co-op players] introduces some interesting new gameplay modes. Perhaps you can think of some team game modes where there might be fun to be had?”
-Zombies are the only confirmed co-op aspect of Black Ops II. The campaign and strike-force modes do not appear to feature co-op.
-Zombies can be played with up to 8 players!
-4v4 mode confirmed.
-Confirmed: Zombies in Black Ops 2 will have Theatre Mode [Zombies Movies] and Wager Matches




Elite 2.0

New Features in Call of Duty® ELITE 2.0:
not yet announced. “Stay tuned for updates later this summer”.

Treyarch Studio Head Mark Lumia said, “Fully Integrated into Black Ops 2″

Beachhead added a question in their FAQs:

Q: I’m a current MW3 Elite member. Will Elite work with Black Ops 2?

A: Absolutely. If you buy Black Ops 2, you’ll be able to enable a range of new Elite features when it launches this November. Stay tuned for updates later this summer.

This, Activision producer Noah Heller told Eurogamer, will change with Elite 2.0, the codename for “what we’re thinking for this year’s coming game”.

“All we’re really saying about it at this point is integration is the word of the day,” he said. “It needs to be in the game. It needs to be tightly wrapped with game features. And that’s our focal point.”

“We’ll be back at some point to talk about that game, and when we do, we’ll reveal a lot more.”

“Long term, we’re making Elite and the game synonymous. If you want to play solo or single-player, you might never notice Elite. But the moment you dip your toe into multiplayer, you’re part of Elite. It’s just up to you whether you take full advantage of the features or not.”


PC Specific features

-Ranked Dedicated Servers are confirmed to be returning in Black Ops 2.

@pcdev: “Confirmed: ‪BlackOps2‬ engine has significant performance improvement for PC”
@pcdev: “Confirmed: Lean and Adjustable FOV in MP ‪BlackOps2‬”
-PC version will utilize DirectX 11
-”[Black Ops 2].. developed by a dedicated PC team simultaneously with the other platforms.”
-”BO2 built from the ground up to catch cheaters”
-”Ability to detect and ban based on lessons learned on Black Ops.

Minimum Spec Requirements:
Coming soon.

Follow @pcdev on twitter for all PC Black Ops 2 News. It’s an official account w/ Treyarch!


Miscellaneous
-Call of Duty®: Black Ops II™ DLC will be coming first on Xbox LIVE®

-COMBAT TRAINING is CONFIRMED for Black Ops 2! (via @Treyarch)
-All versions run at 60FPS.
-Treyarch will not trade frame rate for visual details.
-Build previewed was on Xbox 360. Before/after comparisons reportedly indicated significant improvements.
-Environments given more unique details – helps with player communication to call out specific areas.
-New texture technique called “reveal mapping.”
-”There’s over 250 people at Treyarch, but there’s over 300 people working on the project. We do have contractors and test teams that aren’t part of the company. Those others aren’t actually employees of Treyarch. But there’s over 300 people working on the game right now.”
-Official Call of Duty®: Black Ops II™ Press Release: Click here
-Call of Duty®: Black Ops II™ Slogan is: ‘THE FUTURE IS BLACK™

______________________________
This list is not made by me - credits to CharlieIntel.

Last updated: 10th August 2012

[Jorndel]

Thanks for sharing
Sure someone will find this handy

(I am to lazy to read all the points :P)

[Nachos]

Thanks for sharing
Sure someone will find this handy

(I am to lazy to read all the points :P)

I haven't even read this myself, but I am pretty sure I can answer ANY question about BO2. I have read ever article about it I have found.

[Justin]

Great thread Nacho, Read it all and seems to be intriguing with what their doing with series.

[Nachos]

Great thread Nacho, Read it all and seems to be intriguing with what their doing with series.

Yeah, at least Trearch is chaning someting. What IW didn't do (or did wrong in my opninion).

[stinkie108]

Black Ops halo :P

[Justin]

Yeah, at least Trearch is chaning someting. What IW didn't do (or did wrong in my opninion).

IW used the familiarity to sell their version though, but change was needed; there's only so much of the past and present you can use.

[tonyiscool101]

8 player zombies!!!!!! HOLY $HIT wow cant wait. i want it now

[Justin]

8 player zombies!!!!!! HOLY $HIT wow cant wait. i want it now

8 players is too much in my opinon. 6 should be the max.

[tonyiscool101]

6 players is enough to make a good strategy but 8 players is only for the fun. but your right 8 players is way to much, cant even make it to round 10 XD

8 players is too much in my opinon. 6 should be the max.

[Royce]

I cant wait for it to come out ,3

[Nachos]

Updated 10th August 2012