While the main emphasis of any Call of Duty game is strategy, skill, and gunplay, killstreaks are also a huge game changer at times. Rewarding players that manage to rack up several kills without dying in between, killstreaks have the potential to turn the tides of battle and help players make a comeback or earn a decisive victory. Some of these are volatile and explosive, raining down death on enemies from above, while others are more covert in nature. The Camera Spike killstreak from the original Call of Duty: Black Ops fell in the latter category, but it is peculiarly missing from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
What makes this strange is that there are already several killstreaks, weapons, maps, and game modes from other Call of Duty games within Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but this admittedly niche killstreak is not one of them. Redditor spartanb301 sparked the discussion online about the return of the Camera Spike.
The Camera Spike killstreak is easy to overlook compared to some of the other powerful killstreaks in Black Ops Cold War. It may be more tempting to bring a guided missile into the fight than a camera on a tripod, but its live feed of the battlefield is indispensable for skilled players that use it correctly. Players could place the camera down in strategic places, whether those are choke points or contested zones, and then watch the video in place of their mini map. Fan response to being reminded of this unique killstreak is mostly positive, with many reminiscing on how they used it in the original Call of Duty: Black Ops.
This emphasis on spying makes a lot of sense for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, as the entire Black Ops subseries has always been more about subterfuge, conspiracy, intrigue, and intelligence than head to head encounters. Giving players the upper hand in ways other than providing them new ways to kill each other is far more interesting and fits well with the theme of Black Ops Cold War. Whether or not this killstreak is added back into the game remains to be seen.
There are of course those players that could care less about the Camera Spike, with some even claiming it was one of the most useless in the original Black Ops. More likely than not, the killstreak saw very little use among players and Treyarch opted not to bring it back in future installments for that reason. Still, with enough support, anything could happen.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
