Call of Duty: World at War was my first Call of Duty game, so I still remember the surprise when a friend showed me its secret zombie mode. I played so much Zombies across World at War and Black Ops that I actually got a bit burnt out by it. Most Call of Duty games since World at War have featured some sort of zombie mode, with some making a radical departure from the original formula. On the other hand, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode feels familiar, but that’s not a bad thing.
At today’s Call of Duty Next event, Treyarch showed off what the Zombies experience in Black Ops 6 will look like in more detail. Beforehand, I went go hands-on with a solo game of Zombies at an event in Washington, D.C.
After playing a couple of games, I found it to be a great mix of old and new. It has all the visual flourishes and loadout friendliness I’d expect from a new Call of Duty game. That’s certainly a far cry from the humble, hidden horror mode tucked away in World at War. Still, its round-based nature is a welcome return and the feeling of getting more powerful and stressed with each passing round means Zombies has not lost its luster since 2008.
The walking dead
During a briefing prior to my playtime with Black Ops 6, Treyarch was adamant about the fact that it’s “all-in on round-based zombies” this year. The setup is familiar. You’ll start with slow and weak zombies in round one, but by the time you reach round eight or 10, more come at you and they’re tougher to take on. While the zombies get more powerful, so do you.
The currency I gained from killing zombies could not only be used to open up new areas of the map, but to unlock access to new weapons and abilities. It’s an intricate tug-of-war that jumps between making me feel very overpowered with upgrades and temporary power-ups and woefully underpowered with each passing round. Even with all the flourishes around Black Ops 6’s take on zombies, I can appreciate that this core is still there.
It’s what made the original zombies so appealing in World at War, and I’ve been dismayed whenever I’ve seen Treyarch or other Activision studios stray from it. Black Ops 6 features elements introduced to Zombies over the past 16 years, such as the ability to extract from a match so it doesn’t end in death and the Gobblegum system from Black Ops 3. There are still some worthwhile additions, though.
Attention to detail
Zombies has all the inherent benefits of being part of Black Ops 6. It looks fantastic, and a lot of attention was paid to small details. Liberty Falls is a new map, and while its outdoor daytime setting is a visual change of pace for round-based zombies, it makes the map memorable. I love that different death scenes will play depending on what killed you.
Call of Duty’s Zombies modes inherently have a lot of replay value, so it’s nice to see it reward repeated plays by making each death feel unique. It’s also possible to play Zombies in third-person now, which is yet another way to make this well-trodden round-based formula feel fresh.
There are also plenty of other small quality-of-life improvements. These include the ability for two players to spend their currency together to unlock a door and the fact that Pack-A-Punch gun camos are toggleable if you just want to see the one you equipped your gun with. Treyarch is also teasing a “Directed mode” coming to Black Ops 6 Zombies post-launch. This will give players looking to discover the lore of Zombies a clearer and guided way to experience it in addition to the main quest of each map.
Black Ops 6 Zombies feels like a back-to-basics culmination of everything that has come before in Call of Duty Zombies. Plenty of improvements have been made to the mode to give this take a distinct flair, but fans of old-school Zombies should find it quite appealing. I can’t wait to play more and sink my teeth into some latter-game systems I haven’t gotten to fully experience yet.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches for PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on October 25.