What happens to Bell Cold War?

Throughout Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War’s campaign, players will have played their part in tracking down the mysterious Perseus, who’s determined to cause a nuclear war. As protagonist Bell, players will fight their way through iconic world stages trying to put an end to the madness. But as things unfold towards the beginning of the game, we realize not everything’s as it seems. When given a major decision, players will determine which of Black Ops Cold War’s endings they’ll get.

It can all get a bit confusing, but fear not, we’ll explain how to get both of the main endings, as well as the decisions that change the final cutscene you’ll get.

Be warned, this guide contains spoilers for Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War’s campaign, in particular, its endings. If you’re looking to enjoy the campaign spoiler-free, turn back now.

How to Get the Good Ending in Black Ops Cold War

During the ‘Identity Crisis’ mission, Bell will be getting interrogated by the rest of the team. It turns out that they placed an identity in your mind by brainwashing you into thinking you’d served in Vietnam, which you never had.

Ultimately, they’ll ask you where Perseus is. If you choose to tell them the truth that Perseus is in Solovetsky, you’ll get the ‘The Final Countdown’ last mission. This sees the team heading to Solovetsky and disabling a radar array that Perseus was going to use to detonate the nukes across Europe.

After the mission’s completed, Bell and Adler will stand looking out over some clips and chat a bit, before pulling guns on one another and pulling the trigger. Both of them die, but it’s never really explained why.

Our best guess is that Adler pulled the gun on Bell because he knew too much about what had happened over the course of the campaign. Leaking that knowledge could have huge implications on the global scale, so he had to be silenced. Bell likely pulled his in retaliation.

Raven Software’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is certainly not for the faint-hearted. We’re not just talking about the violent aspects of the game which of course, involve guns and missiles, but also a very real psychological aspect that pertains to the player’s character Bell.  Throughout the game, the player lives through the unraveling of Bell’s own trauma and major identity crisis.

This when factored with Operation Greenlight, the nuclear weapons program sets the final arc of the game in which the player must determine how to proceed and arrive at a final conclusion.

Related: Is Adler Perseus in Cold War?

Bell’s decision

Bell discovers who he really is in the mission ‘Identity Crisis’ and it’s not good. All this time Bell was convinced that he was a CIA operative working alongside Russell Adler, however, he discovers that he is in fact, a Russian Operative who was actually working with Perseus and has been severely brainwashed by the CIA.

This realization changes the linear plotline of the game and creates a situation for the player where they must decide their loyalties to proceed and conclude the game.

Related: Cold War CIA Combo Code

The Worst Ending Scenario

Once you become aware of Bell’s real identity, it’s up to you to decide whether you wish to side with Perseus and fulfill Bell’s original destiny or have a change of heart, side with the Americans and stop a massive nuclear bombing instead.

There are three endings in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War that will occur on the basis of the choice you make. If you choose to tell Adler ‘Solovetsky Monastery’ and end Perseus, you trigger the good ending in the game. On the other hand, should you misguide Adler by sending him and his team to Duga, you will trigger a bad ending in the game and you will find yourself playing mission ‘Ashes to Ashes’.

Within this mission, there is a cut scene where Adler confronts Bell about his decision. You will be shown three response options of which the dialog to signal ambush will call Perseus and enable you to kill all the Americans. However, there is the worst ending scenario that gets triggered when you choose to reply with another answer in which Adler kills Bell then and there.

Related: Cold War Bad and Good Endings

Why Does Adler Kill Bell in the worst ending?

The more technical answer is that you chose the worst-ending scenario which leads to this action. However, should you have chosen to help the Americans, Adler was coming for Bell even in that case. In the betrayal+ambush scenario as well, you could choose to let Adler kill you in the final scene by avoiding resistance.

Any direct confrontation between Adler and Bell leads to Bell dying (even in the vague good ending one). In the case of the good scenario, Adler decides to shoot Bell because it was his very intention to kill Bell once he had provided Adler with everything that he needed. Adler could never trust Bell after all the things that the CIA has done to brainwash him. So Bell’s death was absolutely certain.

In the worst-case scenario, Adler kills Bell because of Bell’s betrayal. Adler expected Bell to side with them, as the scene shows, Bell chose to go with Perseus instead.

Related: Cold War Poison Cabinet Code

Is there a way to avoid Adler from killing Bell?

In the scenario where Bell calls for an ambush and Perseus’s men enter the scene, Bell’s survival is absolute unless you choose to avoid fighting Adler in their final confrontation.

Two ethically and emotionally conflicting situations for our protagonist and yet, finding closure seems to be impossible in either one. But Call of Duty is a brutal reminder of the fact that all is fair in war and it’s up to you to decide how you plan to address this moral dilemma in the game. Take care and stay safe.

RELATED

The Call of Duty franchise has been known to pull some pretty aggressive punches when it comes to the game's main campaign. The first Modern Warfare title plunged players into a cold ice bath of emotions when the title's main protagonist got blown up in a helicopter and died watching a nuclear blast go off in the near distance. And Black Ops Cold War players are experiencing a similarly shocking moment when Adler shoots Bell. But why does he do that?

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So why does Adler shoot Bell?

The Black Ops series certainly does like to take certain liberties when it comes to the narrative of their games: just look at the "Zombies" mode in the franchise as a clear indication of the developers doing whatever they darn well please. The game's main protagonist, Bell, has a pretty fantastical story arc of his own.

WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for the Cold War main campaign are delineated further in this article.

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If you know anything about the Cold War, it was a time in the nation's history where distrust of Russia and the USSR was at an all-time high. Stories of covert operations and missions between spies have been oft-talked about and fictionalized in a variety of different movies and TV shows. So it's only natural that this double-agent, criss-cross dynamic would be at the heart of the latest COD game's primary narrative.

It's hinted pretty early on in the game that Bell has undergone his fair share of trauma and the title's final chapter, "Identity Crisis" lays the truth out: Bell isn't a U.S. operative, he's a Russian spy who's been brainwashed by the CIA and he's been working with Perseus the entire time. Yikesaroni and cheese.

What's cool is that the game then offers players a choice: Do they decide to work for the U-S-of-A, or do they pledge their allegiance to Mother Russia?

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Depending on the path you choose, you'll get a different ending, and the game packs three separate conclusions. Do you stop the nuclear bombing threat and forget your original mission training? Or do you carry out the plot and murder tons of people in the process to establish a new world order? Such heavy choices, even if they are virtual ones.

doing the bad ending for cold war someday

— Adler (SPOILERS FOR COLD WAR BEWARE) (@Stuffisurmom) November 16, 2020

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The game's "worst ending" involves Adler killing Bell — something the man intended on doing from the get-go because he knows that Bell's been brainwashed and just can't bring himself to trust him. I mean, they're working in a world full of clandestine and surreptitious skullduggery, and it's not like anyone's going to have a happy ending.