The developers of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War have released story details for the game's Zombies mode. While a zombie mode was announced to be in the upcoming title some time ago, no concrete information about it had been shared to date. The game is less than two weeks from release.
The Call of Duty franchise has had many iterations of a Zombies mode over the years with the first one coming in Call of Duty: World at War. Developer Treyarch was responsible for introducing zombies to the franchise and since then the undead monstrosities have appeared in many games since, including those made by other studios. Treyarch, however, has done it the longest with an overarching story tying all of its Zombies modes together. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is their latest entry to the franchise as a whole and as expected it will feature the newest chapter in their Zombies narrative.
In a first look of Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Zombies, it was revealed this latest entry will be called the Dark Aether story and the first episode is titled Die Maschine. The story will be set in '80s in the midst of the Cold War featuring the CIA-backed international response team known as Requiem and the mysterious Soviet-led organization known as Omega. Both organizations are vying to uncover the secrets of a World War II-era experiment named Projekt Endstation. The narrative for Black Ops Cold War's Zombies mode will also not be strictly confined to one particular game mode. Players will take control as operators in multiplayer as well as characters from the single-player campaign including Russell Adler, Lawrence Sims, and Sgt. Frank Woods.
In terms of gameplay, Treyarch promises to keep the core of what made Zombies so memorable in the first place while adding a few new improvements. Many of the new mechanics will allow for more diverse play styles in the newest Zombies mode thanks to a variety of new weapons and tactics, the latter of which includes the ability to exfil a squad from the map when the battle becomes overwhelming. The game will also feature massive cross-play and cross-gen improvements, drastically increasing the player pool for Zombies. A series of free Zombies mode maps is also set to be released to players post launch.
Treyarch appears to be gearing this newest Zombie mode toward longtime fans and that can be a good thing. It shows that the developer has a lot of confidence in the story it's trying to tell and that it really wants to explore some of the possible narrative avenues set up in previous titles. Not only that, but Treyarch seems to be putting in an effort to keep players informed on what has happened story-wise up to this point, which should be helpful to those unfamiliar with the Zombies mode plot so far. With the wide accessibility Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will have, it is encouraging to see the studio behind it putting so much effort into both narrative and gameplay elements, even in just one particular mode.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be released on November 13 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: Treyarch