Warzone Season 4 Teaser Hints At Raul Menendez Operator
A familiar face from way back in the early Call of Duty days could be about to rear his head. While we wait patiently for the imminent drop of Call of Duty: Warzone Season 4, Activision has kicked its marketing machine into overdrive. Now, the latest trailer has teased the potential return of Black Ops 2's villainous Raul Menendez.
Although Warzone is a battle royale game at its core, that doesn't mean there isn't a story that ties it to a larger Call of Duty universe. With Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War taking us back to the '80s with the story of Russell Adler and his hunt for Perseus, Warzone soon followed suit, blew up the original Verdansk, and replaced it with Verdansk '84 for Season 3.
Vikhor "Stich" Kuzmin is the main focus of Season 4, and with the one-eyed antagonist putting his final plans for "Greater Russia" into place, it looks like he could soon be joined by another big bad of the franchise.
Who is Raul Menendez coming to Warzone Season 4?
Speculation that a Menendez will drop into Verdansk first started circulating when the Season 4 trailer teased what's to come. A seemingly throwaway like saw Wraith mention "our man in South Africa", which has led to the idea of Menendez appearing as an Operator.
For context, Menendez was the main antagonist of 2012's Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The game split its time between the late '80s and the year 2025, meaning we got to see two different sides of Menendez. It just so happens the Nicaraguan drug lord was operating out of Angola in 1986. It was here that Alex Mason shot Menendez in the eye and left him permanently scarred.
Warzone's current setting on 1984 means any appearance of Menendez would feature him pre-Mason and with both eyes, but with Angola being located near South Africa, fans could be onto something with this one.
Is Raul Menendez coming to Warzone Season 4?
It might not be as simple as tossing Raul Menendez into Warzone Season 4. Although the setting and timelines seem to marry up with him being the mystery man in South Africa, critics think it's someone else entirely. One disinterested player wrote, "I hope not, we need fresh faces, apartheid-era South African villain would be cool, not another rehash, plus he was in Angola at the time I believe, which is far from South Africa".
Others were critical of adding Menendez to the game - saying it makes the already complicated lore even more confusing. Someone else simply added, "That moment where you sit there for like 5 minutes trying to remember which game Menendez is from cause there's so many storylines and keeping track of characters starts getting difficult... Yup... that was me..."
Still, Menendez has his supporters. Backing up the idea of a Menendez Operator, one gamer wrote, "I mean it's possible, remember when we first saw him in bo2 he was at a radio station maybe he was talking to Stich". Another added, "In certain loading screens for some maps you can see some paper with the name Menendez in it". There's just one week until we get to see what Raven Software has up its sleeve with Warzone Season 4, and as we look for more hints of Menendez, the plot continues to thicken.
Images via Activision