Black Ops: Cold War - Operation Red Circus mission: How to Review Suspects correctly explained

How Operation Red Circus and Reviewing Suspects works

Opening up after completing the Fracture Jaw mission, Operation Red Circus appear on the evidence board alongside another side-mission Operation Chaos.

Within is a side-mission you cannot access until you complete an objective - Review Suspects. This has you choose three agents to mark as the likely double agents.

Though you can technically select three random suspects in order to just start the mission, the evidence is needed to correctly narrow down the list and prove you have the correct suspects to complete the associated challenge.

To find the evidence, you need to play through three campaign missions - Brick in the Wall, Echoes of a Cold War and Desperate Measures - and find the hidden evidence in each. Once you have, and can return to the safe house, then access the mission board, and set about looking through the evidence to work out who the suspects are.

First things first - let's find that evidence. You can find all evidence on your first playthrough of a mission, and if you forget to pick up any, remember you can replay any mission from the mission board, or from the Campaign area of the main menu.

Brick in the Wall evidence location for Operation Red Circus explained

Towards the end of the mission, you must explore Kraus's apartment. After you have tranquilized the wife and staged her on the sofa, wait at the bottom of the stairs until the daughter calls him away.

Now head upstairs. There are two doors here in the corner. Go through the left one to enter the bedroom.

Now check the bedside cabinet to find the evidence.

Note there is some evidence for Operation Chaos halfway through this mission, too - at this point you might have missed it, but it's worth knowing if you need to replay a second time.

Echoes of a Cold War evidence location for Operation Red Circus explained

Not far into the mission, you'll enter a base after clearing guards patrolling outside in the snow.

The first area of the base is a partly destroyed command centre, which you drop down into from an upper floor.

Next to the middle most set of consoles is a table with the evidence.

Echoes of a Cold War evidence location for Operation Red Circus explained

This is a unique mission where you must explore the KGB Headquarters. According to the community, it appears the evidence in this randomised or bugged to a degree. For us, the following location worked on the first attempt in finding it.

Play the mission until you turn off the cameras in the Camera Room. At this point, the mission opens up, where you can freely explore the building to find a Bunker Key.

First, make your way to the Records room in the north of the building before you visit any other location. You need to pick the lock to enter, and take out the guard inside to freely explore.

The evidence you are looking for is on the desk in the adjoining office.

According to ryanthebirdman on reddit, it appears this is a guaranteed way to find the evidence, as doing other objectives beforehand may see it move or disappear - so if you are struggling, be sure to head to the Records room straight after turning off the cameras, and it should show up.

How to Review Suspects and solve the Operation Red Circus puzzle

Once you have all three evidence pieces, go to Operation Red Circus on the mission board, then inspect each piece of evidence closer to find their clues.

You need to use the evidence to work out who the three suspects from the long list are. If you look at the suspects list, you have two key sets of details to work from - Gender and Recent Travel List.

The evidence contains details on three suspects - in our case, they were named Bearded Lady, Strong Man, and Juggler - with the evidence confirming who they are based on the details we have.

The first and third pieces of evidence - Wristwatch Containing Dead Drop List and Franz Kraus's Ledger - must be used to cross reference the locations and dates with our list of suspects.

The second, Cassette Tape with Activities Report, will confirm the gender of the suspects.

When reviewing all three as a whole, in our experience, each suspect needs to have two of the locations listed in their bios mentioned across the evidence, with the gender as an extra confirmation.

If there's only one date which appears for a suspect - which appears to the case for almost all of them - then that's not enough. Review the list until there's two dates which match, as well as the gender, and you will end up with three suspects.

Once you have marked the three suspects and are sure, you can start the Operation Red Circus mission. The mission itself is fairly straightforward; though you are on a timer, it should be enough time to search the three buildings, then track down the target as they flee into the bunker. If you are struggling to go from building-to-building due to heavy fire, remember you have a sniper rifle to switch to, and that there's a snowmobile next to the central building to help evade enemies in the final locations of the mission.

Note you won't know if you have been successful in your suspect choices until the mission has ended, where you will receive a challenge notification when back at the notice board. As far as we know, if you get it wrong, it appears unlikely you can replay the mission - so it's worth being certain of your choice.

Additionally, it appears getting the suspects correct or not has no impact on the mission itself.

If you haven't already, it's worth also completing Operation Chaos before you move on to the final set of missions.