Black Ops Cold War breakdown reveals far longer TTK than Modern Warfare

Brad Norton
Black Ops Cold War multiplayer gameplay

Time to kill (TTK) is always an important aspect of any Call of Duty title, and it appears Black Ops Cold War will be considerably longer than Modern Warfare, according to a new breakdown from the Alpha test.

TTK in any FPS is always a major talking point. If players are dying too quickly, it can be a frustrating experience. The same can be said if players are absorbing far too much damage.

With each annual release in the CoD franchise, the TTK is always in flux. Some games favor a quicker pace, while others have given out far more health than usual.

With the recent Black Ops Cold War reveal, we got our first look at multiplayer footage. While a ton of new maps, modes, and features were on display, a more intricate breakdown has only just come to the surface.

After going hands-on with an early Alpha playtest, popular YouTuber TheXclusiveAce touched on the subject of TTK. He uncovered the “rate of fire values of every gun in the Alpha build of the game.” With that, he was able to put together an accurate assessment of the game’s TTK. Here’s what we learned from the breakdown.

Black Ops Cold War will reportedly be the second game in franchise history where players will have 150HP in total. This is a significant bump from the standard 100HP present in every title other than Black Ops 4. 

As a result, the TTK appears closer to the Black Ops 4 than anything else. With data coming from body shots in the Alpha, TheXclusiveAce determined the TTK for three weapon types. Assault Rifles, SMGs, and LMGs. Below is a breakdown of how each category stacks up against Black Ops 4 and Modern Warfare.

Black Ops Cold War breakdown
A breakdown of the Black Ops Cold War TTK, thanks to TheXclusiveAce.

As you can see, the average TTK is considerably longer than that in Modern Warfare. With most SMGs in the 2019 release, players can take down their enemies in 175 milliseconds. In Black Ops Cold War, however, it takes 275 milliseconds instead, just a slight decrease from Black Ops 4.

“It leans towards Black Ops 4, but on average, it’s a little faster,” the popular content creator explained. Upon taking a closer look, there’s more than first meets the eye with TTK in the new release.

With health bars back in the game, damage is presented in two ways. “For a standard body shot, you see a white chunk of health taken away. When it comes to headshots, we see a yellow chunk taken away.”

This means that headshot multipliers are back in full effect. TheXclusiveAce equated this to roughly 1.4x damage increase for headshots. That came “with no additional attachments that boost headshot damage.”

Overall, the upcoming game appears to strike a balance between Black Ops 4 and Modern Warfare. If you’re just landing body shots, you can expect a TTK similar to Treyarch’s last release. But if you’re able to mix body shots with headshots, the TTK jumps closer to 2019’s Modern Warfare.

It is worth keeping in mind that these values are just from the early Alpha test. There’s a good chance things can change ahead of the upcoming beta and full release.

If you missed anything from the major unveiling, be sure to catch up on our coverage of the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer showcase.

Related Topics

About The Author

Brad Norton is the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. He graduated from Swinburne University with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and has been working full-time in the field for the past six years at the likes of Gamurs Group and now Dexerto. He loves all things single-player gaming (with Uncharted a personal favorite) but has a history on the competitive side having previously run Oceanic esports org Mindfreak. You can contact Brad at brad.norton@dexerto.com