Looking to rank up as fast as possible in Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War multiplayer? Every new release in the FPS games series requires a slightly different approach in order to maximise your XP gain, and that’s definitely something you will want to do during the first couple of weeks of play. Some of the best Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War guns are waiting for you at the higher levels, including a FAMAS-like assault rifle and an anti-material sniper.
In previous Call of Duty games the golden rule has been playing time and making the most out of objective-based modes to maximise your in-match XP gains. Black Ops Cold War isn’t particularly different, but the new mode Fireteam: Dirty Bomb and the reworked scorestreaks system both offer some great XP gains.
Join us as we run through some of the basic tips you can use to rank up as fast as possible in Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, from the best game modes to how you should play them.
Best game modes to rank up fast
The first tip is to steer clear of kill-based modes. These are fine to warm up in, but the amount of XP you’ll get for eliminations is nowhere near as high as what you’ll see if you play around objectives.
Stick to objective play – Domination and Hardpoint offer huge sums of XP. Search and Destroy is one of the best ways to gain XP thanks to higher XP gains from objective play and eliminations, but you’ll need to get a decent number of kills every match, which is very difficult in a limited-life mode.
Fireteam – Dirty Bomb is also a great source of XP thanks to the huge stacks of bonus XP you get for hoovering up Uranium.
Always complete matches
This was true of Modern Warfare and it bears repeating for Cold War: always complete your matches. There is a match completion bonus as well as bonus XP from certain challenges that only tick up once you’ve finished a match, so you’ll earn heaps of passive XP just by hanging around in a match for longer – even if your team is getting stomped. You can always play objectives if you’re not having much luck racking up frags.
Kills are fine, streaks are sublime
Speaking of getting kills, standard frags will get you a meagre amount of XP, but if you can string kills together into streaks they can quickly become your best source of XP. It can sometimes pay to let a gunfight go if you’re on a streak, so that you can get an easier kill later and cash in on the bonus XP you get from streaks of ten kills or more.
You’ll get a bonus 500 XP whenever you continue a streak, not to mention huge milestone XP drops of 2000 when you hit 15, 20, 25 kills, and so on. Of course this is all easier said than done, but once you understand just how valuable these streak bonuses are you might find that you play more carefully when you’re about to break a new streak milestone.
Medals matter as well, offering up littler bundles of XP for playing a certain way. There are also streak medals, which will make those milestones even more valuable.
Seasonal and camo challenges
These drop huge amounts of XP upon completion, so even if you’re not seeing the gains between certain matches you will eventually get a whopping reward for unlocking a tricky camo for a certain gun. Camo challenges make for one of the most satisfying grinds in multiplayer, too, so we always suggest going after these for extra XP dumps here and there.
If you are thinking about getting into the campaign but want to know how much time you’ll need to sink into it, here is how long Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War is.