to Japan and charters a boat to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, claiming that he is looking for "some old friends". Development On May 18, 2019, Kotaku reported that the game was in upheaval as developers Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software had increasing tensions between the studios. Two sources described the game as a "mess". In response, Activision assigned Treyarch to lead development alongside Raven. This led to a shorter development period compared to previous entries as well as the two studios having different responsibilities, with Raven Software leading the development of the single-player campaign. On August 4, 2020, Activision in their Q2 earnings call confirmed that a new Call of Duty title was planned to be released in 2020 and that Treyarch and Raven were developing the game. It is the first Call of Duty game since Modern Warfare 3 to be co-developed by two studios, as well as the first time Raven Software is a main developer, as in previous games they assisted on the multiplayer and extra features. Activision president Rob Kostich confirmed during the Q2 earnings call that Black Ops Cold War will be "tightly connected" to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and Call of Duty: Warzone. Raven Software's Dan Vondrak said on the idea of multiple endings, "when we started creating the story, we had multiple endings in mind right away. And that really helped ... But we knew right away that we wanted to do that. I absolutely loved the idea that we could [have a] little bit of homage to Black Ops 2 by having these [multiple endings]." Marketing Announcements and marketing relating to a Call of Duty game have traditionally been around April or May prior to the game's fall release. However, Activision began teasing the game with an alternate reality game (ARG) in August 2020. Various YouTubers prevalent to the Call of Duty community on YouTube were shipped crates. Once authorized to open on August 10, 2020, they were greeted by a slide projector, 10 different slides per crate, and a manifest. Starting on August 14, 2020, the game was marketed, after initial ciphers solved, by enticing fans to solve ciphers and puzzles on pawntakespawn.com. The website allowed fans to watch VHS tapes containing news segments and footage that pertained to the corresponding year(s) throughout the Cold War. Throughout the VHS tapes, at random intervals, two-digit nixie tube combinations