With the release of the newest Call of Duty, Black Ops Cold War, TreyArch and Activision transport players back to the era of the Cold War in the 1980s that was waged between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is a return to the historical era featured in Black Ops 1 and was also briefly shown in flashbacks in Black Ops 2.

It should be no surprise then that there are callbacks to both of these games in both the campaign and multiplayer. Though newer CoD fans may not get some of these callbacks right away, original players who played both Black Ops 1 and 2 will. Here are a few of those callbacks that only these original players noticed.

10 A Familiar One-Eyed Face In Zombies

Original players will instantly recognize the one-eyed commander in the game’s zombies mode as Grigori Weaver. He was a character in the first Black Ops that had his eye gouged out in it and fought alongside Jason Hudson and the first game’s main character, Alex Mason. He also ends up being the main interrogator of Mason when they are searching for Nova 6’s location.

He was oddly absent in Black Ops 2 despite surviving the events of Black Ops 1. To see him alive and well was a pretty nice callback to an overlooked character.

9 Return Of An Old Foe

Weaver is not the only returning character from Black Ops 1, the right hand of that game’s main villain, Dragovich, Lev Kravchenko. While he might seem like a random brute to newer players, there is more to him than that.

He is calculating and ruthless which is shown when he gouges out Weaver’s eye to get to the CIA. He is also loyal to his country when he is willing to sacrifice himself to take out Woods in the Payback mission in the first game. He is revealed to have survived the encounter in Black Ops 2 so it makes sense he would turn up at some point in Cold War.

8 The Mac V SOG Symbol On Sims’ Jacket

In the game’s present setting, Lawrence Sims, who is the supplier for Adler’s team, is wearing a jacket that has a simple with a skull wearing a beret which reads Mac V SOG (located below the knife on his vest) which stands for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observation Group.

This was a spec ops unit in the first game that Mason, Frank Woods and Hudson were apart of in the Vietnam missions in Black Ops 1. They were also a faction for that game’s multiplayer on Vietnam maps.

7 Woods And Mason’s Prior Time In Cuba

In the safehouse before the End of The Line mission, Bell will have the option of talking to Woods and Mason about the upcoming mission. When asking about Cuba, Woods will get antsy about taking another shot at then Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Asking why will get Woods angry.

This is because in the opening mission of the Black Ops 1, both Woods and Mason participate in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, a U.S led mission to overthrow Castro. Though they seemingly kill him, it is revealed that the Castro they killed was really a double. Castro then hands Mason over to Nikita Dragovich after capturing him, essentially triggering the events of the first game.

6 Where Those Crossbow Bolts At Yamantau Came From

In the mission Echoes of a Cold War, Woods and Mason go to the ruins of an old Soviet base in Yamantau that was featured in the WMD mission in the first Black Ops. Along with the ruins are bodies of long dead Soviet soldiers.

Mason can comment on this and will say that Hudson was busy. This is because in the WMD mission, players controlled Hudson who had a crossbow as a weapon in the mission.

5 Those Numbers Are Not So Random At First Glance

Sticking with Echoes of a Cold War, once the player interacts with the bodies, a lot of strange red numbers will appear on the screen. Newcomers will think it is pretty random but players will recognize these same numbers from Black Ops 1.

These numbers were used by Dragovich in an attempt to brainwash Mason into becoming a Soviet sleeper agent tasked with killing JFK. But one Viktor Reznov overwrote the orders and Mason was instead turned into the latter’s instrument of revenge.

4 The Photo Of The Man In The Yamantau Locker

The last callback in Echoes of a Cold War can be found in a locker after Mason is separated from Woods in the mission. A locker can be encountered which contains the redeemer pistol and a photo of a man that will trigger numbers.

While new players might not think much of it, this is a photo of Friedrich Steiner, a former Nazi doctor who created the Nova 6 chemical that he, Kravchenko and Dragovich tried to use on the U.S in Black Ops 1.

3 Raul Menendez’s Dead Father

This is a callback featured in the Cartel map of the game’s multiplayer to Black Ops 2 and a rather obscure CoD title, the PS Vita exclusive Black Ops: Declassified. In one of the houses southeast of the hangar bay on the Cartel map a house with a photo of a young Raul Menendez, Black Ops 2’s main antagonist, will have a dead body laying on a bed.

This is the body Raul’s father, Jose Luiz Menendez who is a target the player must kill in a mission set in Nicaragua in Declassified. Both the mission and Cartel map are both set in the year in Nicaragua in 1982.

2 Nova 6 In Kravchenko’s Office

In the first part of the Desperate Measures mission, double agent Dmitri Belikov must obtain a keycard from a Soviet general in order for Adler and Bell to get the information they need on Operation Greenlight. One of the ways to obtain is by poisoning the general with vials of a chemical found in Kravchenko’s locker in his office.

The computer in his office reveals that there are Nova 6 vials in the locker. This shows that it did not disappear after the end of Black Ops 1 despite the attack being stopped. It also provides a hint into how it turns up again in Black Ops 3.

1 That Tie-In With Modern Warfare (2019)

Warzone has forever changed the course of Call of Duty for the foreseeable future with its massive amounts of weapons and story additions. With Woods as operative, a tie-in to Black Ops was inevitable. This tie-in being an appearance from Imran Zakhaev, whose son Victor is the mastermind behind the conflict of Modern Warfare’s multiplayer narrative.

Before then though, Zakhaev was the main villain of COD 4’s campaign. Original players instantly recognized him and was a huge surprise since the older Modern Warfare games and Black Ops were apart of separate timelines. Now the new Modern Warfare is indeed canon with the Black Ops timeline.

NEXT: Major Differences Between The PS4 & PS5 Version Of Call Of Duty: Cold War