Enable & Pacman: How Cold War Control changes could improve CDL 2021

Potential changes to Black Ops Cold War’s Control game mode could make the mode far more “competitive and entertaining” for the remainder of the 2021 Call of Duty League season. Our Reverse Sweep crew of Ian ‘Enable’ Wyatt and Jonathan ‘Pacman’ Tucker explain why.

With the release of Black Ops Cold War in 2020, Treyarch brought Control back for the second time in Call of Duty history. While the mode was instantly locked in for competitive matches, it hasn’t quite played out as fans expected.

Leaked settings that were soon added into the game could be just what’s needed to restore the excitement of what was once a fan-favorite mode. With the new option enabled, Control might unfold in a completely different way.

Rather than gaining time on the clock for a full capture, teams can now gain additional time with each segment. Moreover, capturing more segments will lead to a favorable defensive spawn if the game comes down to overtime.

Enable and Pacman argues this change would be beneficial for the CDL season.

“To me right now, Control is kinda boring to watch,” Enable said. “It’s not like Control in the past where you could spread the map and really strategize pushing two points at the same time.” 

When Control was introduced in Black Ops 4, players could use their specialist abilities to break into a point. This kept things more even across offense and defense as one huge play could unravel the best setups.

Without them, “there’s just a lot more work that goes into it, so people are essentially playing [Team Deathmatch],” Pacman explained.

As a result, a majority of maps at the pro level end up in a round five. Teams will play far more passively in order to secure the defensive advantage in overtime and clean up the win.

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“Right now, it just seems super basic,” Enable added.

However, with this change to capture progress, it could bring the mode back to its former level of complexity. “I think it has a lot of potential to make the game mode more entertaining for the viewers and more competitive.”

Incentivizing individual ticks on each zone would see the mode being played “how it’s supposed to be played,” according to Pacman.

Nothing is set in stone just yet, though the option is now available in-game. Therefore, players have a choice moving forward. We’ll just have to wait and see if it’s implemented for the rest of the season or not. 

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In the meantime, make sure you’re all up to speed with the final Week 3 results as we head towards the second Major of 2021.