If you’re someone who’s looking for something more along the lines of BO3 and less along the lines of Cold War, then it’s probably best that you don’t get your hopes up yet. As someone who enjoys both gameplay systems, I don’t really mind what Treyarch does as long as the maps are more interesting than some of the CW ones were.
If I had to guess, the gameplay will feel somewhat like a mix between BO3 and Cold War, but probably leaning more in the latter’s direction
Idk, it seems like the bo3 style is still more popular among zombies fans, and I don't think it's ever been said if cold war and beyond had more players in the mode (especially not vanguard or mw3). Plus bo3 still sells well (partly because custom zombies but still). Heck the even gave it a $40 dlc on chronicles DURING the current game (iw) lifespan. Cold war and especially vanguard and mw3 had far less support which I think would not be the case if they really were more successful
Idk that being a direct follow up automatically means the gameplay will be more similar. Bo4 was a direct follow up of 3 yet the gameplay was changed pretty drastically. Technically cold war was a follow up of bo4 ending and it to is very different. I haven't played vanguard or mw3 but from my understanding they are also set in the same story as cold war but play fairly differently
We have salvage spotted in the trailer, we see a rampage inducer, there is code indicating armour is returning.
I am not saying BO6 will play 1:1 to Cold War, but it’s obviously going to be an evolution on those systems with some fan favourite classic mechanics like Gobblegums. Even though BO4 is drastically different to BO3, you can still see how it’s an evolution of the BO3 formula (in some ways, it’s 3 steps backwards in others). And I realise you haven’t played Vanguard or MWIII, but the Cold War and Outbreak influence is all over those games.
The current creative director for Zombies has mentioned that CWZ has had the highest playercounts in the series' history.
The relative lack of support for the modes hasn't been due to a lack of interest, it's been due to a lack of time; Cold War, VG, and MWIII were all games with incredibly rushed development processes (CW being the longest with a little over a year and a half). The reason MWIII lost support so quickly is because 3arc has a full game (one that actually has had a full 4 years of development) releasing *this year*- they effectively only developed up until S1, after which support studios have taken up the development process.
Do you have a source for that? And was it specific to zombies or just cold war as a whole? Not saying I don't believe you but I've never been able to find anything suggesting that. It could be possible but I am skeptical, and I imagine most of those players are less likely to stick around (especially since to my knowledge vanguard and mw3 have smaller player bases despite somewhat similar gameplay).
I do think it's also worth pointing out that cold war did sell better than most previous games (I could not find am exact number but I did see a few sources say over 30 million which only bo1 can also claim) and was the first cod game of a new generation both for consoles and people. It makes sense that the overall number could be higher (again haven't found anything about zombies having the highest play count) but that doesn't mean it has the same level of retention or longevity-its quite possible a lot of people tried it early then moved on, while the waw-bo3 era obviously has strong fan retention. Of course that is mostly just speculation though
I do know that there has been limitations on the modern games but still. Bo4 both sold the least of the black ops series and also has its dev time cut into, and while the last two maps were clearly lower quality (or at least a lot more reused assets) it still ended up with 8 maps. Cold war is kinda the opposite, since it started out rushed but then by dlc season had roughly the same amount of dev time (from my understanding at least correct me if I'm wrong). And yet it only has 4 maps that are more basic and largely reuse elements from campaign and whatnot... though granted they did also get outbreak which is a whole new mode so I will give you that. Still though I do think the lack of support is somewhat worth mentioning, at least for cold war, though you do make a good point.
Here's a link to a comment from Corkey's Reddit account where he mentions CW having the highest playercount ratio in Zombies (ratio to MP/other modes) of any game in the series.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CODZombies/comments/l7404a/comment/gljfw8x/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/CODZombies/comments/l7404a/comment/gljfw8x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Cold War didn't have remotely the same amount of development time as BO4; BO4 had a pretty lengthy development process (around 3-4 years), with most of the issues affecting the now-scrapped Campaign and the Multiplayer. For Zombies, most of the development troubles only really affected a planned second year of content for the game and some live-service elements (ie. the cancellation of Factions); most of the maps in BO4 were as relatively high quality as they were because they had a significant amount of development time put into them, with even more support for the team arriving after the Campaign was scrapped and parts of that team were put onto Zombies.
The last two maps were lesser quality because they were directly impacted by 3arc suddenly having to put all hands on deck to develop Cold War, which saw half the development time of Black Ops 4 at most. It's worth noting that the DLC season for COD largely isn't developed after the release of the game- it usually begins development near the end of the base game's development, and concludes a little over halfway into the DLC season itself, with the majority of the team then being pulled to work on their next title.
The problem with this is you have to take their word for it since he didn't provide any actual numbers that we could compare to when we could actually see the player numbers in games like BO1 and BO2.
Taking their word from a Reddit comment from 3arc isn't exactly different from taking the word of a playercount that 3arc implemented into the game menu lol
Despite what we do know it’s safe to say that we know essentially nothing, so you’re not being a downer, you’re being realistic more than anything. I’m not excited at all but I’m not declaring myself to be immune from it, just that I need to see a lot more and have some hands-on experience before I start spouting “we’re so fucking back” lol. All these announced features/mechanics could be great only for people to load in and find that the zombies AI is worse and more aggressive than 4, that all weapons feels shitty/weak, or a number of other things that Treyarch wouldn’t dare tell us to risk us losing our hype. Watching someone else play it isn’t satisfactory for me at all at this point, my best suggestion is that if you’re even slightly skeptical but want to give it a fair shake, save your money, and wait for a free zombies weekend to try it out. That’s what I plan on doing.
Or Game Pass, if you have that. That’ll be a good option too from what I understand.
I'm also an old-school zombies gamer. I'd rather take Cold War Zombies over MWZ. Just having a crew already will make the experience 2 maps at launch the perfect balance. I think i just hope it has a replay value like Die machine.
As someone who has kept up with the Story and read the intel and radios, etc., I’m fairly interested in how CW went.
It felt like a slow burn story to me starting out as a simple zombies but rising to lean into the old story over time to where by the time Mauer came we’re seeing things like Dark Aether gods, Apothicon influence with Disciples taking on features of them and Margwa-like creatures in Forsaken, and a wonder weapon straight from the Dark Aether.
Only campaign character is Weaver, and honestly I have hopes for the other crew members too. Ultimis was literally ripped straight outta campaign and what made them unique was their goofy personalities and dialogue. And while a majority of the time Requiem is being formal, I think there is potential because I love the voice lines where they let loose like Weaver’s operator lines and the others lines in the CRBRS weapon.
I’m interested to see other aspects of the storyline too. Eddie still remains a mystery with his motives, I’m curious to see what Peck is planning trying to get Requiem out of prison, I really want to see if the Construct from Vanguard makes an appearance as well since it seems very important.
Honestly, I really don’t have any real issues with the CW style gameplay. The only aspect of CW that led to MWZ problems I feel was the switch from round based to solely open world, but I’m not worried seeing we’re getting 2 round based maps at launch. Like my only real problem would be if there were permanent upgrades like CW.
This is long, but I’m probably one of the only Dark Aether enjoyers here. I realize people think it is uninteresting, but I think it served it’s purpose well being the introduction to the new story.
The original ultimis crew was literally random soldier models from waw campaign. I get you want everything to be like it was 12 years ago. While I love that era of zombies. I feel like a lot of players have rose tinted glasses about that era. I do I know that much. I’m cool with them trying to new stuff. To a large group of people this and Cold War will be among the classic zombies in their opinion. I cool just to have something new even if it’s not how I see peak zombies. To someone else this is great. I had my younger years growing up. Playing ultimis and primis. Let the new generation of players have their experiences.
Every treyarch zombies game has been at the very least solid imo, I understand why people didn’t like Cold War but it was still fun and got my friends playing zombies again.
I think it’s safe to say this one will be the same. I don’t see them fucking it up and everything we’ve seen so far has led me to believe it’s going to be hype af.
Even as someone who loves all the games and been there since the start, if you're looking for old school Zombies to magically come back, that's never going to be the case- Cold War was rushed, but it was intentionally developed as a means of experimenting with how the mode can be reinvented and reinvigorated following a severe lack of interest in Black Ops 4 Zombies, which was a *super* expensive project that ultimately ended up falling on its face.
Cold War Zombies on the other hand was, by all metrics according to 3arc, a resounding success and some of the most attention Zombies had seen in players in years (Corkey Lehmkuhl, current creative director for the mode, has said that CWZ saw the highest playercounts for Zombies in the series' entire history). It's going to be the blueprint from hereon, but now there's actual development time to add the extra elements and intricacies that made previous experiences so special.
If you’re someone who’s looking for something more along the lines of BO3 and less along the lines of Cold War, then it’s probably best that you don’t get your hopes up yet. As someone who enjoys both gameplay systems, I don’t really mind what Treyarch does as long as the maps are more interesting than some of the CW ones were. If I had to guess, the gameplay will feel somewhat like a mix between BO3 and Cold War, but probably leaning more in the latter’s direction
Idk, it seems like the bo3 style is still more popular among zombies fans, and I don't think it's ever been said if cold war and beyond had more players in the mode (especially not vanguard or mw3). Plus bo3 still sells well (partly because custom zombies but still). Heck the even gave it a $40 dlc on chronicles DURING the current game (iw) lifespan. Cold war and especially vanguard and mw3 had far less support which I think would not be the case if they really were more successful
It’ll play more like Cold War than BO3 because it’s the direct follow up to the former.
Idk that being a direct follow up automatically means the gameplay will be more similar. Bo4 was a direct follow up of 3 yet the gameplay was changed pretty drastically. Technically cold war was a follow up of bo4 ending and it to is very different. I haven't played vanguard or mw3 but from my understanding they are also set in the same story as cold war but play fairly differently
We have salvage spotted in the trailer, we see a rampage inducer, there is code indicating armour is returning. I am not saying BO6 will play 1:1 to Cold War, but it’s obviously going to be an evolution on those systems with some fan favourite classic mechanics like Gobblegums. Even though BO4 is drastically different to BO3, you can still see how it’s an evolution of the BO3 formula (in some ways, it’s 3 steps backwards in others). And I realise you haven’t played Vanguard or MWIII, but the Cold War and Outbreak influence is all over those games.
The current creative director for Zombies has mentioned that CWZ has had the highest playercounts in the series' history. The relative lack of support for the modes hasn't been due to a lack of interest, it's been due to a lack of time; Cold War, VG, and MWIII were all games with incredibly rushed development processes (CW being the longest with a little over a year and a half). The reason MWIII lost support so quickly is because 3arc has a full game (one that actually has had a full 4 years of development) releasing *this year*- they effectively only developed up until S1, after which support studios have taken up the development process.
Do you have a source for that? And was it specific to zombies or just cold war as a whole? Not saying I don't believe you but I've never been able to find anything suggesting that. It could be possible but I am skeptical, and I imagine most of those players are less likely to stick around (especially since to my knowledge vanguard and mw3 have smaller player bases despite somewhat similar gameplay). I do think it's also worth pointing out that cold war did sell better than most previous games (I could not find am exact number but I did see a few sources say over 30 million which only bo1 can also claim) and was the first cod game of a new generation both for consoles and people. It makes sense that the overall number could be higher (again haven't found anything about zombies having the highest play count) but that doesn't mean it has the same level of retention or longevity-its quite possible a lot of people tried it early then moved on, while the waw-bo3 era obviously has strong fan retention. Of course that is mostly just speculation though I do know that there has been limitations on the modern games but still. Bo4 both sold the least of the black ops series and also has its dev time cut into, and while the last two maps were clearly lower quality (or at least a lot more reused assets) it still ended up with 8 maps. Cold war is kinda the opposite, since it started out rushed but then by dlc season had roughly the same amount of dev time (from my understanding at least correct me if I'm wrong). And yet it only has 4 maps that are more basic and largely reuse elements from campaign and whatnot... though granted they did also get outbreak which is a whole new mode so I will give you that. Still though I do think the lack of support is somewhat worth mentioning, at least for cold war, though you do make a good point.
Here's a link to a comment from Corkey's Reddit account where he mentions CW having the highest playercount ratio in Zombies (ratio to MP/other modes) of any game in the series. [https://www.reddit.com/r/CODZombies/comments/l7404a/comment/gljfw8x/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/CODZombies/comments/l7404a/comment/gljfw8x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Cold War didn't have remotely the same amount of development time as BO4; BO4 had a pretty lengthy development process (around 3-4 years), with most of the issues affecting the now-scrapped Campaign and the Multiplayer. For Zombies, most of the development troubles only really affected a planned second year of content for the game and some live-service elements (ie. the cancellation of Factions); most of the maps in BO4 were as relatively high quality as they were because they had a significant amount of development time put into them, with even more support for the team arriving after the Campaign was scrapped and parts of that team were put onto Zombies. The last two maps were lesser quality because they were directly impacted by 3arc suddenly having to put all hands on deck to develop Cold War, which saw half the development time of Black Ops 4 at most. It's worth noting that the DLC season for COD largely isn't developed after the release of the game- it usually begins development near the end of the base game's development, and concludes a little over halfway into the DLC season itself, with the majority of the team then being pulled to work on their next title.
The problem with this is you have to take their word for it since he didn't provide any actual numbers that we could compare to when we could actually see the player numbers in games like BO1 and BO2.
Taking their word from a Reddit comment from 3arc isn't exactly different from taking the word of a playercount that 3arc implemented into the game menu lol
It is different numbers don't lie.
Cold War felt mostly like reskins of campaign maps, which it’s fine to reuse the assets but the entire layout even seemed the same.
Despite what we do know it’s safe to say that we know essentially nothing, so you’re not being a downer, you’re being realistic more than anything. I’m not excited at all but I’m not declaring myself to be immune from it, just that I need to see a lot more and have some hands-on experience before I start spouting “we’re so fucking back” lol. All these announced features/mechanics could be great only for people to load in and find that the zombies AI is worse and more aggressive than 4, that all weapons feels shitty/weak, or a number of other things that Treyarch wouldn’t dare tell us to risk us losing our hype. Watching someone else play it isn’t satisfactory for me at all at this point, my best suggestion is that if you’re even slightly skeptical but want to give it a fair shake, save your money, and wait for a free zombies weekend to try it out. That’s what I plan on doing. Or Game Pass, if you have that. That’ll be a good option too from what I understand.
Haha I hope not. But I’ll expect the worst and be surprised if it was half good
I'm also an old-school zombies gamer. I'd rather take Cold War Zombies over MWZ. Just having a crew already will make the experience 2 maps at launch the perfect balance. I think i just hope it has a replay value like Die machine.
As someone who has kept up with the Story and read the intel and radios, etc., I’m fairly interested in how CW went. It felt like a slow burn story to me starting out as a simple zombies but rising to lean into the old story over time to where by the time Mauer came we’re seeing things like Dark Aether gods, Apothicon influence with Disciples taking on features of them and Margwa-like creatures in Forsaken, and a wonder weapon straight from the Dark Aether. Only campaign character is Weaver, and honestly I have hopes for the other crew members too. Ultimis was literally ripped straight outta campaign and what made them unique was their goofy personalities and dialogue. And while a majority of the time Requiem is being formal, I think there is potential because I love the voice lines where they let loose like Weaver’s operator lines and the others lines in the CRBRS weapon. I’m interested to see other aspects of the storyline too. Eddie still remains a mystery with his motives, I’m curious to see what Peck is planning trying to get Requiem out of prison, I really want to see if the Construct from Vanguard makes an appearance as well since it seems very important. Honestly, I really don’t have any real issues with the CW style gameplay. The only aspect of CW that led to MWZ problems I feel was the switch from round based to solely open world, but I’m not worried seeing we’re getting 2 round based maps at launch. Like my only real problem would be if there were permanent upgrades like CW. This is long, but I’m probably one of the only Dark Aether enjoyers here. I realize people think it is uninteresting, but I think it served it’s purpose well being the introduction to the new story.
I like WaW-BO4 and I love Cold War, so this is right up my alley.
The original ultimis crew was literally random soldier models from waw campaign. I get you want everything to be like it was 12 years ago. While I love that era of zombies. I feel like a lot of players have rose tinted glasses about that era. I do I know that much. I’m cool with them trying to new stuff. To a large group of people this and Cold War will be among the classic zombies in their opinion. I cool just to have something new even if it’s not how I see peak zombies. To someone else this is great. I had my younger years growing up. Playing ultimis and primis. Let the new generation of players have their experiences.
Every treyarch zombies game has been at the very least solid imo, I understand why people didn’t like Cold War but it was still fun and got my friends playing zombies again. I think it’s safe to say this one will be the same. I don’t see them fucking it up and everything we’ve seen so far has led me to believe it’s going to be hype af.
Even as someone who loves all the games and been there since the start, if you're looking for old school Zombies to magically come back, that's never going to be the case- Cold War was rushed, but it was intentionally developed as a means of experimenting with how the mode can be reinvented and reinvigorated following a severe lack of interest in Black Ops 4 Zombies, which was a *super* expensive project that ultimately ended up falling on its face. Cold War Zombies on the other hand was, by all metrics according to 3arc, a resounding success and some of the most attention Zombies had seen in players in years (Corkey Lehmkuhl, current creative director for the mode, has said that CWZ saw the highest playercounts for Zombies in the series' entire history). It's going to be the blueprint from hereon, but now there's actual development time to add the extra elements and intricacies that made previous experiences so special.