Summary
Some high expectations are already being placed on the Zombies experience ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 6, with the game’s recent Direct presentation giving the first major look into the upcoming mode. As the creator ofCoDZombies, many fans are looking to Treyarch to recapture the glory days of the mode while steadying the ship of the controversial Zombies interpretations of more recent franchise titles.
The Direct presentation forCall of Duty: Black Ops 6gave a good teaser of Zombies information, with more being set to come with theCall of DutyNEXT event on August 28. One of the recently revealed details aroundBlack Ops 6is already massively important, however, with the Direct confirming that Zombies will feature a dedicated cast in the upcoming game. Zombies was made so iconic through its original cast of characters, an element of the mode that was lost inCold War, and Treyarch has made a point of reassuring fans that this has been heard loud and clear inBlack Ops 6.
A Cast of Playable Zombies Characters Already Scores Points For Black Ops 6
The first iteration ofCall of DutyZombies came with 2008’sWorld at War, with the concept of a round-based survival mode being a revolutionary addition to the franchise at the time. While the first few Zombies maps forWorld at Warcould appeal to fans through gameplay alone, they featured vague playable characters that took away from the storytelling potential of the mode. This quickly changed with the release of the map Shi No Numa, which first introduced players to the cast of Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki.
These four characters would go on to become the defining faces ofa huge portion of Zombies' history, being the central characters to the Zombies narratives ofWorld at War,Black Ops,Black Ops 2, and even partially inBlack Ops 3and4. Linking the many maps and iterations of Zombies to a recurring cast of characters was one of the main reasons that the storylines of the mode have worked so well over the years, with the motivations and personalities of the playable characters being tied to the events that unfold.
The original Zombies cast also played a large role infleshing out the iconic Easter eggs of the mode, with most subsequentCoDreleases featuring their own playable characters until the 2020 release ofBlack Ops Cold War. Instead of assigning players different members of a core cast of four,Cold Warintegrated Zombies with core multiplayer andWarzoneby making players choose from multiplayer operatives instead.
Black Ops 6 Lets Players Choose How They Approach Playable Zombies Characters
Some fans felt that doing away with a dedicated Zombies crew went against the history of the franchise, making the narrative ofCold WarZombies have a lesser impact as a result. This went hand-in-hand with a shift over to the Outbreak Zombies formula, which ditched round-based survival for open-world experiences with progression being tied to in-game challenges. This change, combined with operators appearing over a recurring cast, wouldbleed into the Zombies of 2023’sModern Warfare 3, but this has thankfully changed withBlack Ops 6.
Within the Direct presentation, Treyarch confirmed thatBlack Ops 6would return to traditional round-based Zombies, with a unique cast of playable Zombies characters also being confirmed by the studio. Smartly, this new cast is made up of recurring characters fromCold War’s Zombie narrative in Grigori Weaver, Mac Carver, and Elizabeth Gray, while introducing a brand-new character in Maya Aguinaldo. Players will still reportedly be able to choose between this new cast and standard operator skins, but it finally puts the power back into the hands of players to make Zombies feel like its own standalone experience once again.
