Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War preloading is live

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The shooting starts tomorrow, but the action has already begun.

In case you somehow hadn't heard, Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, Activision's guns-blazing dive into the early-'80s world of spies and shadowy conspiracies, comes out tomorrow. And for those who want to get on the trigger the moment the action begins, preloading is live on PC now.

As usual for recent years, the new Call of Duty is only available on PC from Battle.net. And that's pretty much all there is to say about it: If you have prepurchased it there, you can now preload.

For those who plan to jump in, we've also got valuable information on Scorestreaks, Wildcards, and Field Upgrades, and some tips that will help you find your footing in Cold War's multiplayer combat, which is quite a bit different in some ways (a significantly longer time-to-kill, for instance) than last year's Modern Warfare. 

Activision also recently rolled out the season 1 roadmap, which begins on December 10, and there are a bunch of weird cameo appearances to look forward to—so naturally, we ranked them.

Here's when it all goes live:

(Image credit: Activision)
Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.