29 Interesting Facts About Call of Duty: Black Ops

Interesting Facts (22)

#001
In the scene where you ride the elevator in Vorkuta, Reznov's left hand is missing its index finger. He lost it in Call of Duty: World at War (2008).
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#002
The "Numbers" shown throughout the game are displayed as Nixie tubes, a neon digital display technology from the 1960s.
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#003
Because of his cold manner and indifference, Agent Hudson is often called "Ice Cube" by Mason. Another member of your team, Joseph Bowman, is voiced by Ice Cube.
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#004
Contains a major spoiler — show
Mason is the only character who talks with Reznov after Vorkuta, because whenever Mason speaks with him, Reznov comes to his mind.
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#005
Step 2 of Reznov's plan to escape Vorkuta is to get out of the dark. On the zombie map Nacht Der Untoten, this step is written on the wall leading up from the spawn room to the top floor. Nacht Der Untoten was created 2 years before the Black Ops campaign.
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#006
The game includes a Russian roulette scene that may serve as a tribute to the famous scenes in the Vietnam War epic "The Deer Hunter."
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#007
If you shake both sticks on your controller, Mason will rise from the chair he is locked in.
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#008
Contains a major spoiler — show
If the player presses "start" while Hudson is standing at the computer console, the number sequence can be seen under Mission Objectives after Mason breaks his programming: 3, 24, 20, 12, 19, 17, 17, 22, 19, 23, 19, 4, 0, 7, 6, 7, 19, 10, 12, 16, 17, 6, 14, 4, 3, 17, 24, 20, 13, 24, 8, 16, 17, 1, 24, 9, 21, 15, 0, 5, 15, 4, 4, 23, 6, 11, 25, 14, 4, 20, 4, 9, 14, 18, 12, 8, 7, 21, 6, 4, 21, 7, 21, 4, 2, 14, 3, 14, 7, 18, 13, 6, 22, 16, 6, 1, 21, 21, 15, 3, 5, 24, 9, 11, 2, 10, 5, 21, 4, 20, 11, 19, 12, 5, 12, 13, 12, 5, 17, 19, 3, 14, 21, 12, 15, 17, 7, 7, 2, 2, 21, 1, 10, 22, 13, 5.
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#009
In the WMD mission, while Hudson commands his team from the air, one of Hudson's teammates is named Harris. Ed Harris voices Special Agent Hudson.
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#010
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If you walk backward into the room before Mason is punched by Hudson, your camera automatically turns/resets and Hudson's player model teleports behind you to punch you. It may feel a bit odd since you are not supposed to look behind you, but it makes the scene less serious and creates a nice little moment of laughter.
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#011
Gary Oldman, who voiced Viktor Reznov, reportedly strained his voice so hard during recording that he had to take a break from acting to recover.
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#012
The rocket launch you try to sabotage during the "Executive Order" mission is based on the real Soviet Nedelin catastrophe and other secret Soviet space program failures.
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#013
In the Zombies map "Five," all of John F. Kennedy's dialogue consists of real quotes or slightly altered versions of his famous historical speeches.
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#014
The opening mission "Operation 40" takes its name from a real CIA-backed group of Cuban exiles formed in 1960 to carry out sabotage and assassinations.
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#015
If you get up from the interrogation chair and type "ZORK" into the terminal, you can play the entire 1970s classic text adventure game within the game.
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#016
The "S.O.G." mission in the game takes its name from the real-life Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group, a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit.
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#017
If you look closely at the walls in the "Vorkuta" mission, you can find various posters reflecting authentic Soviet propaganda from the late 1940s and early 1950s.
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#018
The HK21 light machine gun appears in the game's 1960s missions even though the real-world weapon did not enter production until the 1970s, making it a historical anachronism.
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#019
In the Zombies map "Kino der Toten," you can find film reels showing flickering images of "Nova 6" scanners, pointing to the biological weapon's origin in the campaign.
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#020
The ship you infiltrate in the "Project Nova" mission is the Tirpitz, a real Bismarck-class battleship used by the German Kriegsmarine during World War II.
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#021
The architecture of Kowloon Walled City in the "Numbers" mission is a highly accurate digital recreation of the densely populated real-life settlement in Hong Kong that was demolished in 1993.
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#022
The interrogation chair Mason is strapped to throughout the story was modeled on real psychiatric and torture equipment used for sensory deprivation experiments during the Cold War.
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Production Story (2)

#023
The zombie map "Kino Der Toten" was originally meant to be a DLC map for Call of Duty: World at War (2008), but it was cancelled because it was too close to the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009).
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#024
During the game's early development, Frank Woods's surname was actually going to be Barnes.
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Behind the Scenes (2)

#025
Treyarch employed motion capture technology comparable to that used in James Cameron's film Avatar for Call of Duty: Black Ops, enabling accurate facial expressions and the capture of an actor's full performance.
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#026
For Call of Duty: Black Ops, Treyarch consulted Cold War special forces veterans from both sides: Major John Plaster (US Army-Ret.), who served in the MACV-SOG during the Vietnam War, and former Soviet special forces operative Sonny Puzikas.
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Easter Eggs & References (3)

#027
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Mason's visions of Reznov appear or when he talks with him, a computer voice reciting numbers can be heard in the background.
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#028
Eminem's "Won't Back Down" (featuring Pink) is used for the credits of Call of Duty: Black Ops and also appears as an Easter Egg in the Zombie map "Five". In the Call of the Dead zombie map, "Not Ready to Die" by Avenged Sevenfold is featured as an easter egg.
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#029
"Numbers" and its brainwashing plot are a direct reference to MKUltra, the real-life CIA project that involved experiments on human subjects to develop mind control techniques.
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 — Call of Duty: Black Ops comes up in the facts on that page
David S. Goyer — Call of Duty: Black Ops comes up in the facts on that page

Sources & editorial notes

Sources for the entries on this page

Wikipedia Call of Duty: Black Ops — WikipediaEncyclopedia · accessed 17 Sep 2026

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