The game's campaign follows up the story of Black Ops and is set in the late 1980s and 2025.

A campaign cameo clinches it Black Ops and Modern Warfare share a universe. There's a moment in the Cold War campaign where you're invited to attend a meeting with the KGB's inner circle. It's not on Zoom, and you're seated right next to Gorbachev. Closer than Jared Harris was in HBO's Chernobyl.