Black Ops Cold War: Rounds

GameCall of DutyBlack Ops Cold War

MapsDie MaschineFirebase ZMauer der TotenForsaken

Zombie health150 at round 160,250 at round 55

Health capRound 55since July 2021

Armored zombiesFrom round 10Heavy zombies from round 20

Best weapon rarityLegendary, 300% damage

Highest First Room275, Die Maschine solo

Converted on ZFRREvery round past 51

In solo, Die Maschine has been played to round 275 without opening a door, and Forsaken to round 246. Firebase Z stops at 90 and Mauer der Toten at 65. Those numbers do not mean Cold War players are four times better than the players of the older games. Cold War zombies stop getting tougher at round 55: from there, every round has the same zombie health, while the weapons keep their full power. This page explains how a Cold War round is built, why it can go that high, how it compares with the traditional formula of World at War to Black Ops III, and how ZFRR converts these rounds for its points and ratings.

The figures come from Treyarch’s own update notes, from the community references listed at the end, and from the traditional health formula. The general picture of the game is in the Black Ops Cold War book.

What a round is made of

Cold War kept the round system of the older games but changed what grows with it. Zombie health still rises every round, but only up to a cap. Next to health, the game adds armor, and it lets the player’s weapons grow just as fast.

Health

150 at round 1, like the player. It grows by a fixed amount each round, and that amount goes up in steps: 60 a round in the early rounds, 2,000 a round from round 37. It reaches 60,250 at round 55 and never moves again.

Armor

Armored zombies appear from round 10 and heavy zombies from round 20 (from round 30 on Firebase Z). Their helmet and vest take damage before the zombie does. Treyarch cut the armor of medium and heavy zombies by 30% in July 2021.

Weapon rarity

Each rarity level adds 50% of the weapon’s base damage, from 100% for a common weapon to 300% for a Legendary one. Every five rounds a wall weapon can go up one rarity, all the way to Legendary, and the Mystery Box offers more and more high-rarity weapons as the rounds go up.

Pace

The Rampage Inducer, added in September 2021, makes zombies appear faster and run at full speed “through Round 55”. At the end of round 55 it switches itself off for good, on the same round as the health cap.

No public copy of the Cold War round script gives the number of zombies per round or the delay between two spawns, so this page does not give them. What matters for the high rounds is health, and health is documented.

Round 55: the health cap

Black Ops 4 already capped zombie health at round 35, but only on its Casual and Normal difficulties. In Cold War the cap is the rule of the round-based maps. Here is a Cold War zombie next to a traditional one, round for round:

Round	Cold War zombie	Traditional zombie
1	150	150
8	570	850
15	1,150	about 1,700
22	3,500	about 3,300
30	12,100	about 7,000
41	32,250	about 20,000
48	46,250	about 39,000
55	60,250	about 76,000
100	60,250	about 5.5 million
275	60,250	over the limit from round 163

A Cold War zombie is softer in the first rounds, tougher from about round 20, and from round 51 the traditional zombie passes it again for good. After round 55 the gap only grows: the traditional zombie gains 10% a round, the Cold War zombie gains nothing.

The cap moved twice. At launch, in November 2020, it was 30,000, reached at round 40. The Season Three Reloaded update of May 2021 raised the cap of almost every enemy “to provide more challenge above Round 40”: ordinary zombies went up to 120,000, only reached around round 85, and players complained of zombies at 120,000 health hitting for 90. In July 2021, Season Four Reloaded brought it down: zombies to +100% at high rounds instead of +300%, special enemies to +50%, elites to +25%, high-value targets to +10%. Double the launch cap is the 60,250 of today.

Why a game can go to round 1,000

Past round 55, nothing in a zombie’s health tells round 100 from round 1,000. A Legendary weapon that kills an ordinary zombie in a set number of shots at round 55 kills it in the same number at round 275. In a traditional game, the same weapon needs 10% more damage every round, and by round 100 a zombie has about seventy times the health it had at round 55.

The zombies stop

From round 55 every ordinary zombie has 60,250 health. Special and elite enemies are capped as well, by the same July 2021 update.

The weapons do not

Rarity alone triples the base damage of a weapon, and the Pack-a-Punch adds its levels on top. A player who has finished building a weapon by round 55 keeps a weapon made for round 55.

What is left is the player

A round 275 is 220 rounds of round 55, played without a mistake. The limit is no longer the health of the zombies but the hours, the attention and the machine.

That is what separates the boards. Die Maschine and Forsaken have records past 240 in solo. Firebase Z and Mauer der Toten stop at 90 and 65: on those two maps the First Room has not yet been held long past the cap.

Traditional Zombies: no ceiling

From World at War to Black Ops III, a zombie has 150 health at round 1, gains 100 a round up to 950 at round 9, then 10% more every round with no cap. That is 1,045 at round 10, about 47,000 at round 50 and about 5.5 million at round 100. In those games every round is harder than the last until the number itself breaks, at round 163, as explained in World at War: Rounds. A round there measures how far the player kept up with a curve that never stops; a Cold War round past 55 measures how long the player held a curve that has stopped.

How ZFRR counts a Cold War round

Counted as they are, Cold War rounds would make a round 275 worth more than four times a round 65, when the extra 210 rounds are all round 55 again. ZFRR converts each Cold War round to its equivalent round in traditional Zombies, the round where a traditional zombie has the same health. The round you played is still the one shown everywhere; the equivalent is the one that scores.

Up to round 51

The round counts as played. From about round 20 a Cold War zombie is at least as tough as a traditional one, and no record is decided before that.

Rounds 52 to 55

The round counts as the traditional round with the same zombie health. Round 55, 60,250 health, counts as round 52.5.

Past round 55

The health no longer moves, so only endurance is left to count. Every time the round doubles, the equivalent goes up by three rounds: 110 counts as 55.5, 220 as 58.5.

Round played	Counts as
10	10
20	20
30	30
50	50
55	52.5
65 (Mauer der Toten solo record)	53.3
90 (Firebase Z solo record)	54.7
150	56.9
246 (Forsaken solo record)	59.0
275 (Die Maschine solo record)	59.5
1,000	65.1

In the No Support ranking, a run scores its equivalent round times the difficulty coefficient of its board, and hovering a converted round shows “counts as round X in traditional Zombies”. The 275 on Die Maschine solo scores 59.5 × 2.5, about 149 points; the 65 on Mauer der Toten solo scores 53.3 × 4.4, about 235. In the player rating, a Cold War run is measured against the equivalent of its world record: a round 100 on Die Maschine solo counts as 55.1 out of 59.5, not 100 out of 275.

The cap of July 2021 is the one used for every run. A few runs on the boards were played before it, under the 30,000 or 120,000 caps; they are converted with today’s numbers like the others.

The world records

Board	Record	Counts as
Die Maschine solo	275 (drainbb)	59.5
Forsaken solo	246 (Slang Kush 420)	59.0
Firebase Z solo	90 (x-tropical_kush)	54.7
Mauer der Toten solo	65 (drainbb)	53.3
Die Maschine 2P	59	52.8
Firebase Z 2P	53	51.8
Forsaken 2P	45	45
Mauer der Toten 2P	37	37

Behind 275 on Die Maschine come Tha1TruPlug at 125 and TheOfficialKHF at 110, and behind 246 on Forsaken, NarrowAlloy69 at 173: four solo First Rooms more than twice past the cap.

Sources

Treyarch, Season Four Reloaded Intel, July 13, 2021: health caps cut to +100% for zombies, +50% for specials, +25% for elites, +10% for high-value targets; armor of medium and heavy zombies cut by 30%; wall weapons that gain rarity every five rounds.
Season Three Reloaded patch notes, May 2021, as reported by Charlie INTEL: health caps raised “to provide more challenge above Round 40”.
Kevin Drew (Treyarch) on the 120,000 health cap, June 7, 2021, as reported by Charlie INTEL.
All about the zombie mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Steam community guide: zombie health by round, the 60,250 cap at round 55, the 30,000 and 120,000 caps before it, armored and heavy zombies, weapon rarity damage.
Call of Duty Wiki: the traditional zombie health formula, the Rampage Inducer, and the heavy zombies of Firebase Z.

The Black Ops Cold War book · Die Maschine · Firebase Z · Mauer der Toten · Forsaken · No Support ranking