Call of Duty®: Black Ops II

Call of Duty®: Black Ops II is currently 50% off on Xbox — down to $19.99 from $39.99.

A 50% cut is a strong deal for Call of Duty®: Black Ops II; steeper drops appear only during the largest Xbox sales.

That works out to $20.00 off the Xbox list price of $39.99.

This deal is for the XBOX version. Click View Deal to open the official Xbox page — prices and regional availability are confirmed at checkout, not by GamesCreed.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops II picked up the Black Ops storyline and dragged it forward, out of the Cold War proper and into a speculative near future where the same paranoia and proxy conflicts get replayed with drones, cyberwarfare, and other next-generation tools instead of just rifles and helicopters. It was Treyarch’s attempt to push the series somewhere new after years of boots-on-the-ground shooters that mostly looked backward, and that shift in setting is really the whole pitch: familiar Call of Duty combat, but with a vision of warfare that felt genuinely different for the franchise at the time.

How it plays

At the heart of it is the moment-to-moment gunplay Call of Duty has always been built on: fast, responsive shooting with a steady drip of new weapons and gadgets to try out. What Black Ops II adds is a setting where advanced technology is actually part of the fiction rather than window dressing, so the tools you’re given feel tied to the near-future Cold War premise instead of bolted on. The result is a game that still plays like Call of Duty at its core but frames that action around a more forward-looking conflict, with the story moving between different points in time to tie the classic Black Ops era to what comes after it.

Who it’s for

This one’s for players who grew up on Call of Duty’s single-player campaigns and want to see the series stretch a little rather than replay the same historical war stories. If you enjoy the moment-to-moment shooting but wanted the setting to feel less like a reenactment and more like speculative fiction, this is the entry that scratches that itch. It’s less essential for anyone who never clicked with Call of Duty’s pacing and gunfeel in the first place, since Black Ops II isn’t trying to reinvent the mechanics, just the world they happen in. Newcomers to the series can jump in fine, since the near-future setting doesn’t demand deep familiarity with earlier games.

Is it worth it?

For anyone who already knows they like Call of Duty’s core gameplay loop, this is the kind of game that’s easy to recommend picking up when it’s discounted rather than rushing to buy at full price years later. It’s a game people still bring up when the series’ Cold War era comes up in conversation, and that alone says something about how well the near-future twist landed. If you’ve been meaning to fill in a gap in the Black Ops timeline or just want a change of scenery from the historical settings the series leans on elsewhere, it’s a solid pickup whenever it shows up on sale. Just don’t go in expecting a huge departure from the shooting mechanics you already know.

Quick facts

Genre: Action & adventure. Developer: Treyarch. Publisher: Activision. Platform: PC. Release date: November 13, 2012.