All Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Endings: Good, Bad and Worst

Let's figure out together how to get them. We'll also break down each ending and explain what it means for the story of that game and for the series as a whole.

How to unlock endings

Before we break down each ending, here's how to unlock each one:

• Good ending: uncover the truth in Identity Crisis;
• Bad ending: Lie to Adler in Identity Crisis and use the radio behind the locked gate to the hideout.
• Worst ending: Lie to Adler, but don't use the radio in the safe house.

Decrypting the floppy disk, finding the three suspects, and completing the associated missions won't affect the ending. However, their results are mentioned in the epilogue.

How to get a good ending

To get a good ending, players must uncover the truth in Identity Crisis by telling Adler that Perseus is in the Solovetsky Monastery. The team then attacks the facility and destroys the radio towers, preventing Perseus from launching the Project: Greenlight nuclear weapon. After completing the mission, Adler talks to Bell on a cliff overlooking the sea. Adler calls Bell a hero and asks for one last sacrifice before drawing his gun. However, in anticipation of betrayal, Bell also draws his weapon. The scene ends before we can see the end of these actions.

 

Since Bell and Adler are not seen in later games in the Black Ops series, it can be assumed that either they kill each other or Bell shoots Adler and disappears. However, Black Ops Cold War could be a soft reboot that will serve as a change point for future games. In this case, it is impossible to draw a conclusion about what happens between Adler and Bell after the end of the good ending.

More broadly, a good ending means that the status quo has been maintained. Nuclear weapons did not explode, and the Cold War continued. The Soviets reject any ties to Perseus and the organization faces major setbacks. The CIA continues their pursuit of Perseus, but is now in hiding.

How to get a bad ending

Time Adler in "Identity Crisis" and inform him that Perseus is in Duga - this is the path to a bad ending. However, in order to get this ending, gamers must first open the locked gate to the hideout. If they did, a countdown timer will begin after Adler releases Bell's restraints. Players must reach the radio in the area outside the gate and contact the Soviet troops to inform them of the impending CIA operation in Duga.

When Bell and a team of CIA agents arrive at the radar installation, they find no sign of Perseus or Soviet troops. However, players will receive a dialogue option signaling a Soviet ambush. Afterwards, Bell must kill his former teammates and finally break into the building to finish off Adler.

 

After the CIA agents are taken care of, Perseus discovers that there is no person by that name. On the contrary, Perseus is the name of a group of like-minded people. Perseus launches a project that engulfs Europe in nuclear fire. The United States takes the blame, and the free world pulls away from them. This changes the world dynamic from a division between two superpowers to the Soviet Union being the dominant political power on earth. Perseus continues to watch from the shadows, ready to replace the leaders of the Soviet Union if necessary.

This ending is terrible for the Western world, but that's what Bell originally wanted. Presumably, after this ending, the Warsaw pack takes over Europe under the guise of reconstruction assistance, and the United States is in political isolation.