Black Ops 6 Zombies Isn’t Weird Enough

I haven’t enjoyed Call of Duty Zombies this much in nearly a decade. In the first week of Black Ops 6 being available, I completed both Liberty Falls and Terminus’ Easter Eggs, and since then, I’ve got a couple of gold camos under my belt and the first prestige badge. I knew I’d be in for the ride with the return of classic-style Zombies, but I never expected it to sink its teeth into me this much.

Black Ops 6 takes the best elements from across the mode’s storied 16-year history, from upgradeable perks and tiered Pack-a-Punches to Gobblegums and Eldritch easter eggs that see us fighting mini-Cthulhu. It has been a huge event for the community, with fans scrambling to unravel every little secret, whether it’s a playable action figure, a Ray Gun vending machine, or a bowling minigame. But looking to the future, Treyarch needs to go even further.

Liberty Falls and Terminus just aren’t weird enough as far as maps go. Zombies fell into a trap with Black Ops: Cold War with the more grounded Aether storyline that saw generic military agents tackling outbreaks of the undead. It was far closer in tone to the campaign than Zombies had ever been, which was only exacerbated by maps that recycled levels directly from said campaign. It drew so much backlash that a selling point behind Black Ops 6 was that the maps would be original — whodathunk that’d work?

But they still fall into that ‘grounded’ territory. Sure, we fight a giant tentacle sea monster that eats up an evil scientist, but we do that in yet another military base. And the alternative is a pretty ordinary town. They’re plain, especially when you look at how weird and varied Zombies used to be.

Black Ops took us to the afterlife, saw us fighting in the Pentagon with JFK, and even put us into the shoes of a George Romero film crew. That’s not to mention the Nazi base on the Moon where Richtofen sacrificed scientists to a giant pyramid.

Black Ops 2 then opened with a bus route through a molten apocalypse after Maxis blew up the Earth, went back in time and saw us stage an Alcatraz prison breakout in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, and capped it all off with an underground Western town, and a trip to Northern France during WW1 while an Iron Giant-style robot stomped around.

The next game saw us fight Lovecraftian monsters in a fictional 1950s city, defend a medieval castle with magical bows, and watch the multiverse collapse as all of the most iconic maps bled together — you had to let an enormous Apothicon eat you to use the Pack-a-Punch, which was right next to pools of its stomach acid.

We had military bases, sure, like Ascension, but these were surrounded by larger than life concepts that still stand out dozens of maps later. Treyarch was thinking up these bizarre ideas first and then stretching the narrative over them, putting the arcade-y nonsense of Zombies at the center. Now, it feels like things have flipped, and to match the more grounded Aether storyline, we’re getting more grounded maps.

Black Ops 6 is already up there with the best, but I’d love to see Treyarch get weird with it. The B-movie shlock that inspired the mode, the campy classics that even led to a Romero cameo, are what made Zombies so iconic. Going from asylums and movie theaters to cruise ships and a Roman coliseum made even the worst of Zombies memorable.

Forced to go rogue. Hunted from within. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Developed by Treyarch and Raven, Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller set in the early 90s, a period of transition and upheaval in global politics, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the rise of the United States as a single superpower. With a mind-bending narrative, and unbound by the rules of engagement, this is signature Black Ops.

The Black Ops 6 Campaign provides dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay that includes a variety of play spaces with blockbuster set pieces and action-packed moments, high-stakes heists, and cloak-and-dagger spy activity.

In a best-in-class Multiplayer experience, players will test their skills across 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6.

Black Ops 6 also marks the epic return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.