There’s no denying that Call of Duty Zombies is part of the franchise’s DNA these days. Slaying the undead in the beloved round-based survival mode has remained part of the FPS series since 2008. With Black Ops 6 on the way, debate around whether it is time for the mode to break free into its own game is bubbling up once again. So, I spoke to COD Zombies icons ‘MrRoflWaffles’ and ‘NoahJ456’ to see if they think it could (and should) happen.
Recently, zombie games like Sker Ritual have been keeping me entertained at a time when Modern Warfare 3 Zombies is severely lacking in decent content. Developed by a five-person team at Wales Interactive, Sker Ritual loving pays homage to Call of Duty Zombies’ roots with a potent mixture of classic survival firefights and optional easter eggs. YouTuber NoahJ456 is just as enthusiastic toward the newcomer, too: “[I] love what they have going on. It’s a small dev team of five people who clearly want to please the existing Zombies community. They even reached out to me and ended up adding my voice into the game, which was awesome.”
NoahJ456 has seen it all when it comes to all iterations of COD Zombies. For a multiplayer game newcomer like Sker Ritual to earn such praise out of the gate isn’t a feat to take lightly, and I’m just as enamored with how Wales Interactive has kept the genre rejuvenated. The seasoned Zombies player adds that “I’m just a fan of videogames, and anyone who is making good games, especially within the zombies [game] genre, is always awesome to see.” But will Activision ever give Treyarch the task of developing a standalone Zombies title?
“While I seriously doubt it will ever happen, I think the big shots at Activision would be surprised to find out just how many people would buy a game that focuses on a mode most of us have been playing for [over] ten years,” Noah tells me.
There’s clearly been an appetite internally at Activision to explore the idea, at the very least. A major revelation for a canceled Call of Duty Zombies standalone game emerged earlier this year, that would have used similar live-service elements found in MW3 Zombies right now. “Do I think that it’s a good idea? Well, if it meant that the Zombies mode could be freed from some of the necessities of being a part of the wider Call of Duty [ecosystem], then absolutely, categorically, yes,” MrRoflWaffles says.
However, it can’t just be any old take on fighting hordes of undead foes. It has to have that Call of Duty DNA within it. That signature feel of dolphin diving, chugging on a Quick Revive, or screaming in joy when the Ray Gun appears in the Mystery Box. Commenting on the Zombies community, MrRoflWaffles posits that “we love the fact that Zombies has one of the best gunplay sandboxes on the planet, if not the best, certainly for the means that we’re playing. Having a depth of experience that only an enormous title like Call of Duty can muster is really important.”
In an ideal world, we’d already have a Zombies game that bundles previous maps together with some current-gen polish. Not everyone wants to pay $29.99 just for the pleasure of revisiting Nacht Der Untoten using Black Ops 3 as the vessel for co-op game carnage. For now, I’m clinging onto hope that TranZit is making an overhauled appearance in Black Ops 6. At least it can’t be as bad as Vanguard Zombies, can it?
In other gaming news, Black Ops 6 will require a constant internet connection even in single-player modes, but luckily it won’t be the hulking 300GB monster recent rumors have claimed.