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Call of Duty Zombies |OT| Overly Complicated

Kalentan

Member
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Welcome to the Call of Duty Zombies OT thread! This is a dedicated thread for all games in the series that have the Zombie mode. Either use it to talk
about gameplay, lore, or even meet ups! In Ver 1 of this thread, it will mainly to gather zombie players, but as time goes on I'll add links to helpful
sources. I have no doubt others in the community will also lend a hand in aggregating helpful sources.

The current games with Zombie Modes:
World at War – Treyarch - 2008
Black Ops - Treyarch – 2010
Black Ops 2 - Treyarch – 2012
Advanced Warfare – Sledgehammer - 2014
Black Ops 3 - Treyarch – 2015
Infinite Warfare – Infinity Ward – 2016
WWII – Sledgehammer – 2017

It should be noted that Advanced Warfare is currently the only COD game with a zombie mode that didn't have a zombie map included in the launch but came in DLC.

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From World at War to the current Infinite Warfare, Zombies work thusly. You play as 1 of 4 characters in either solo or 4 player cooperative. Your goal is to see
how long you can survive or complete the Easter Egg (more on that below). You begin in a single room with a pistol (usually), and must kill zombies or board up
windows to gain points. You use this points to then to guns on the walls, open up doors, or run the mystery box to get a random gun (that may not exist as a wall buy), or buy perks.

Depending on the map (and rounds), you will get a ‘dog-round' where instead of zombies, infernal dogs will come out and attack you. You get a ‘max-ammo' at
the end of these rounds. Later games would change the dogs to a variety of other things (monkeys, clowns, skaters, etc..) but they all function the same and
result in a max-ammo.

You can also pack-a-punch your gun on every map except for Nacht der Untoten, Verruckt, and Shi No Numa. From Der Riese and on, pack-a-punch exists on
every map. Pack-a-punching upgrades the strength of your guns allowing them to be effective in later rounds as Zombies gain more health or special zombies
(in some maps) appear.

Starting in Black Ops 3, it is possible to double pack-a-punch but in BO3, you gain a perk onto the gun to give it an additional effect. In Infinite Warfare double
pack-a-punch simply makes your gun even stronger.

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Love them or hate them, Easter Eggs have become a staple of the Zombie mode starting from Verruckt with its Lullaby for a Dead Man song able to be
played. However, since then, on top of the hidden songs, Easter Eggs have become far more complicated. Despite being called Easter Eggs, they've long
since included storylines that spans across entire games. All of Treyarch games have followed a single zombie storyline.

The Zombies Community gathers at map release times to solve these Easter Eggs. Starting in Black Ops 3, these Easter Eggs result in a Boss Fight at
the end and a Cinematic. This continues into Infinite Warfare's maps.

What Easter Eggs require the player to do changes on a per-map-basis and depending on the maps could be either relatively easy or incredibly hard. It
is advised to follow a guide and maybe get a friend to do the Easter Eggs. Though some are possible to do Solo.

Sledgehammer confirmed that WWII will contain Easter Eggs of a most likely similar quality to the past 2 years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CODZombies/wiki/index#wiki_cod_zombies_guides

This Reddit link has a bunch of Guides for every map in Zombies.

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Nacht der Untoten | Verruckt (DLC 1) | Shi No Numa (DLC 2) | Der Riese (DLC 3)

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Kino der Toten | Dead Ops Arcade | Five | Ascension (DLC 1) | Call of the Dead (DLC 2) | Shangri-La (DLC 3) | Moon (DLC 4)

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Tranzit | Nuketown Zombies | Die Rise (DLC 1) | Mob of the Dead (DLC 2) | Buried (DLC 3) | Origins (DLC 4)

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Point of Contact | Nightfall (DLC 1) | Mayday (DLC 2) | Awakening (DLC 3) | Exodus (DLC 4)

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Outbreak (DLC 1) | Infection (DLC 2) | Carrier (DLC 3) | Descent (DLC 4)

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Shadows of Evil | Dead Ops Arcade II | The Giant | Der Eisendrache (DLC 1) | Zetsubou No Shima (DLC 2) | Gorod Krovi (DLC 3) | Revelations (DLC 4) | Zombie Chronicles (DLC 5)

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Zombies in Spaceland | Rave in the Red Woods (DLC 1) | Shaolin Shuffle (DLC 2) | Attack of the Radioactive Thing (DLC 3) | The Beast from Beyond (DLC 4)

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Army of the Dead | ? (DLC 1) | ? (DLC 2) | ? (DLC 3) | ? (DLC 4)
 
I think I would be more interested in the zombies mode if the story was a tad more cohesive. It's easier to understand the entire plot of the Metal Gear series...
 
Appreciate the effort OP.

That said, these have been basically the same for me since BO2.

However, the ideas of Dead Space being applied to this mode is waaaay more intriguing.
 

daninthemix

Member
World at War with its DLCs was the original and best zombies. It became increasingly convoluted and uninspired after that.
 
I find that zombies mode can only be enjoyed with friends what with all the easter eggs steps that need a group of people who communicate and can coordinate. My friends and I love playing it. I just don't see how people can have much fun or get very far by joining randoms.
 

Creaking

He touched the black heart of a mod
Been playing Infinite Warfare's zombies lately. Pretty fun stuff, though with a much more campy tone, if you don't like that sort of thing.

Completed the main easter eggs on the first three maps. I'm not sure if they've struck a good balance between accessibility and complexity yet.

Spaceland was pretty straightforward, but the boss was a little too difficult (especially with more than one player), and locking both double pack-a-punch and the arcade game easter egg to it's completion (something you have to do each time you want to access either feature) was a bad move.

Rave was even more straightforward, maybe a little too easy and with needless breaks from the action while riding on the boat. The boss was solid stuff though, and I really like the map in general. The mini easter eggs that unlock little mini perks for your guns were cool, letting you customize your play-style in a lot of fun ways. You could be really fast, or heal to full upon getting a melee kill, or give yourself extra defensive measures while sliding or being hit, and several other neat abilities.

Shaolin Shuffle is a lot of fun, but the easter egg is really long and complicated, with some sections that feel very needlessly tedious. Boss was all right, but it's possible to get stuck if you run out of ammo on one particular step of the fight. The reward for beating the easter egg (besides the playable guest) is fantastic though.

Attack seems to be more like Shaolin. The easter egg is really long winded and has some ridiculous complexities (video game chemistry, for one). On top of that, when I made an attempt at completing it, I ran into bugs that halted my progress far into the quest, and I was forced to abandon it. I've heard you don't get any big or permanent rewards for completing it (as you do in Shaolin) either. Still, the map has a cool theme, and I like the wonder weapon (once fully assembled).

Overall, it's probably the most fun I've had with the mode. I only got into it big time with Black Ops III thanks to some QoL changes that made it more satisfying to play. Ended up losing interest due to some annoyances I had with the way Treyarch handled the mode (along with multiplayer), and general boredom.

In Infinite Warfare, I really appreciate that when new weapons are added to the game, they're immediately included in zombies as well. I also think the variant system adds a lot to the strategy of the game. Instead of defaulting to a certain set of "best" weapons, as I would with most other versions of zombies, I find myself utilizing guns I wouldn't normally touch, because I have a variant that grants it a special ability. For instance, there's a semi-auto sniper rifle called the DMR-1. By most accounts it's terrible around round 20, but I have a variant for it that has an ability which slows down zombies when you shoot them. It can turn runners into walkers (and seems to last until the zombie is killed or respawns) making it fantastic for getting stuff done at the end of a round.


I think I would be more interested in the zombies mode if the story was a tad more cohesive. It's easier to understand the entire plot of the Metal Gear series...

Here you go. (HUGE image)

You're right though. That's one of the other reasons I lost interest in Treyarch's zombie story. It became too esoteric for me to care. IW's zombies story takes itself far less seriously, but it seems pretty simple thus far.

Oh, and if you actually want to read the timeline, some kind people transcribed it for the wiki. It helps a little bit.
 

Kalentan

Member

Well you know had to try. I planned on making this before IW came out last year but never got around to it. With WWII coming up I thought I'd not miss it this time.

I think I would be more interested in the zombies mode if the story was a tad more cohesive. It's easier to understand the entire plot of the Metal Gear series...

While I do love the Treyarch story, I do think it suffered from lack of forethought. Since it was clear the story wasn't completely mapped out from the get-go, they clearly had to scramble to make things work.

I think though for a mode that began out as a fun little thing you get from being W@Ws SP. The story came out a lot better than I expected.

I find that zombies mode can only be enjoyed with friends what with all the easter eggs steps that need a group of people who communicate and can coordinate. My friends and I love playing it. I just don't see how people can have much fun or get very far by joining randoms.

I honestly don't even play online Zombies anymore. I just solo.
 

Archpath1

Member
Poor Ghosts Extinction -__-

fun mode.


really excited for ww2's take on zombies

easter eggs and trains are ok and all but I just like killing zombies and surviving old fashioned I guess
might be interesting if they followed Natzi Zombie Army's approach story with wave defense
 

Toa TAK

Banned
Nice OT.

Looking forward to WWII's zombies. It'll be cool to have something "grounded" in the WWII setting a la WAW.
 

BigEmil

Junior Member
Black Ops 3 with Zombies Chronicles DLC is all you need the rest is irrelevant.

Most fun one would be CoD Ghost Extinction with the sort of Aliens mode instead of Zombies which is much better
 
The greatest maps of all time (in no order):
Shi no Numa
Der Reise
Origins
Five

Pretty good:
Verruckt
Tranzit

"Miss me" with all the others.
 

Gorillaz

Member
It's become boring om some level. This is what happens when every single studio does the same side mini game. When it was iw and 3arc you ended up having enough time between launches to actually miss zombies.


Same thing happened to all of them doing future warfare. Dumbest idea.

Infinite warfare should have doubled down on aliens.
 

Randam

Member
Don't like the turn they took with Origins and the BO3.
Medieval Knights, magic staffs and bows, dragons, cthulhu monsters, aliens and so on.
Should have started a new storyline after it got ended with "Moon".

I prefer playing the W@W and BO1 maps through Zombies Chronicles.
I like play Shadows of Evil too, but I pretend it doesn't take place in the same universe.
 

breadtruck

Member
World at War with its DLCs was the original and best zombies. It became increasingly convoluted and uninspired after that.

This is how I feel as well.
The mode hasnt been fun for me. I have no idea what I should be doing and just killing the zombies isnt even enjoyable on its own to make last longer than an initial play or two.
 
I am happy that the mode is going to back to the Wolfenstein-esque horror in WWII. That said, so help me god the damn easter egg part involves Blundell-style ciphers more convoluted than Matrix fanfiction.
 
It's become boring om some level. This is what happens when every single studio does the same side mini game. When it was iw and 3arc you ended up having enough time between launches to actually miss zombies.

Same thing happened to all of them doing future warfare. Dumbest idea.

Infinite warfare should have doubled down on aliens.

Yeah, would've loved to see Spec Ops return in Advanced Warfare (which could have been very fun due to the Exo-Suit) and Aliens in Infinite Warfare (which was the perfect opportunity for that).

Last time I touched Zombies was in Advanced Warfare, although I did play a little bit of the Black Ops 3 one before I sold it and tried out one round in Infinite Warfare. If I do decide to get WWII, I feel like it will be the perfect point to re-enter the franchise since that trailer looked amazing.

I was looking into Infinite Warfare zombies and while I don't have an interest in picking it up or any of the DLC, some of those themed maps looked very creative and fun.
 

13ruce

Banned
Love zombies but my irl friends kinda moved on it and playin with randoms is ehhhh. So i kinda quit after black ops 3 zombies. Love the mode tho good ol arcadey fun. Altho the easter egg steps got ablittle bit too complicated to do without a guide.
 

Valkrai

Member
I expected to see Toa Tak and not disappointed.

Love CoD Zombies and Army of the Dead looks way creepier than anything Treyarch has done.

Also Black Ops 2 Zombies sucked hard (except for Mob and Origins)
 
Don't like the turn they took with Origins and the BO3.
Medieval Knights, magic staffs and bows, dragons, cthulhu monsters, aliens and so on.
Should have started a new storyline after it got ended with "Moon".

I prefer playing the W@W and BO1 maps through Zombies Chronicles.
I like play Shadows of Evil, but I pretend it doesn't take place in the same universe.
I think technically shadows of Evil is another universe.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
I tried one of the BO3 zombies maps (shadows of evil I think) and was completely stumped as to what the hell I had to do.

At some point I tuned into a triffid, then the other three players were running around all over the place and that was that...it's something I really want to get into but get lost at the minute I load the game up.

Maybe I should bun chronicles and see what happens.
 

Randam

Member
I think technically is another universe shadows of Evil.
OK, you are right. But I think you know what I mean.
But characters from the original universe travel to shadows of evil.

I pretend SoE has nothing to do with the original story.


I tried one of the BO3 zombies maps (shadows of evil I think) and was completely stumped as to what the hell I had to do.

At some point I tuned into a triffid, then the other three players were running around all over the place and that was that...it's something I really want to get into but get lost at the minute I load the game up.

Maybe I should bun chronicles and see what happens.

There is a lot of stuff to do in Shadows of Evil and the other newer maps.
But you don't really have to do any of it.
You could just open up the map and kill zombies till you die.

As for learning maps, just play them and watch the other players and/or ask them what they are doing.
 

KDC720

Member
I loved zombies when it first happened, kind of fell off around the Moon DLC for Black Ops 1. However, I purchased the Zombie Chronicles for Blops 3 on a whim after enjoying Spaceland in IW and I honestly forgot just how good a lot of the WaW and Black Ops 1 zombie maps were, they still hold up super well. With the Black Ops 1 maps in particular balancing size and easter egg complexity the best.

So I then went and bought the Blops 3 season pass and played around with some of those maps for a bit and I do like how they don't seem as obnoxiously large as Tranzit in Blops 2 which I didn't care for at all. I think their are still a lot of things on those maps that can go over people's heads though, especially as they seem to have explicit goals and objectives in mind other than just "survive".

The Treyarch zombies story from WaW-Blops 3 is also the best kind of wonderful nonsense. I noticed they did have to "reboot" the four main characters making them a bit more serious and less cartoonish stereotypes, but they still kept a lot of the fun and goofiness, and it was neat to see this bizarre overarching story play out in this minigame over the years.

I'm excited for WWII zombies, especially given Sledgehammer's pedigree with Dead Space, and I hope they can really hit that balance that the first Black Ops nailed so well.
 

Nori Chan

Member
How many people here actually try to go for the Easter egg? Out of curiosity.

Just wondering if there's enough engagement for me to ask for help on them lol (probably makes it worse that I'm on Xbox one
 

Daffy Duck

Member
How many people here actually try to go for the Easter egg? Out of curiosity.

Just wondering if there's enough engagement for me to ask for help on them lol (probably makes it worse that I'm on Xbox one

I tried it once with friends on Shangri La I think on BO, and my head nearly exploded.
 

Kalentan

Member
Considering zombies has been shit since BO2, I'm not surprised. Lightning struck twice with WaW and BO1 zombies, but everything since hasn't come close.

Or perhaps GAF doesn't have the largest community. Zombies has gained such a huge community that they would lose sales not including it.

I know you may not like the new Zombies but it's more popular now than it's ever been.

How many people here actually try to go for the Easter egg? Out of curiosity.

Just wondering if there's enough engagement for me to ask for help on them lol (probably makes it worse that I'm on Xbox one

I try. Usually I just play the maps for survival but I do hope to beat the IW Easter Eggs eventually.
 

RoKKeR

Member
Played IW Zombies last night with a friend... have never really gotten in to Zombies before. It was fun but damn, we had no idea what to do haha.

That said, WW2 looks very interesting.
 

Kalentan

Member
Played IW Zombies last night with a friend... have never really gotten in to Zombies before. It was fun but damn, we had no idea what to do haha.

That said, WW2 looks very interesting.

IW Zombies is honestly the easiest to get into. I think an issue people have is the perception of it being complicated versus the reality. You see so much stuff so you assume you have to do all of it when you can do none of it.

The only complicated thing you sort of need to figure out is the pack-a-punch machine but even then once you do it once it becomes super simple.
 

Kalentan

Member
If I had to speculate on the Army of the Dead map (without having seen the trailer yet), I have to imagine that Sledgehammer will try to change things up but will most likely keep some staples of CoD Zombies in it. After all, they began their marketing for the mode by sending stuff out to YouTubers that are huge in the Zombies community, so they want to court them.

Things that will remain:
1. Points.
2. Perks
3. Easter Eggs
4. Door Buying

Things that will change:
1. Amount of special Zombies
2. The gibbing of Zombies will be much higher
3. Larger Story focus than previous games, less having to piece things together.

Obviously there will be more but this is what I imagine. I think the biggest thing is that they want to keep the mode replayable. The biggest thing with Zombies is the replay value being so high as it is. I know some want it to be like a co-op campaign but it being completely that is very unlikely as it would make it far easier to simply beat and then put back on the shelf.
 
The title pretty much says it all. My friends and I have tried a few times to progress through a map not knowing what the hell to do but shoot zombies, buy ammo and open nearby passages but since there is no direction and the "puzzles" are obtuse as shit we often just die in place without progressing far.

The game gives you no time to take in environmental clues, if they are exist at all, because it seems like if you waste a single second making the wrong move you've already doomed the round. I guess you are supposed to spend twenty rounds just goofing off to get the feel of the land and where they place strange objects that activate shit?

We usually give it about ten attempts, sometimes not getting anywhere, before we give up and return to pvp multiplayer. I'd prefer it if the mode took more cues from the Left 4 Dead franchise, especially since it's been left for.. nm.
 
Why can't we have custom Zombie games with infinite lives or save and continue. I mean I can understand that ranked modes end the game when everyone dies. But private custom matches should have the option to save and continue or infinite lives etc.

Sometimes I just want to explore and find all easter eggs but the mode lately is so overly complicated it's almost impossible to complete everything.
 
How many people here actually try to go for the Easter egg? Out of curiosity.

Just wondering if there's enough engagement for me to ask for help on them lol (probably makes it worse that I'm on Xbox one

I did all of Black Ops 3's inter-connecting easter eggs, only for the second pistol and extra ammo at the start of a game (PC)

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They're entirely doable with enough patience, but if you're required to have multiple players to even finish them like in Shangri-La or Shadows of Evil, that's when I get angry

Black Ops 3 with Zombies Chronicles DLC is all you need the rest is irrelevant.

Most fun one would be CoD Ghost Extinction with the sort of Aliens mode instead of Zombies which is much better

Hey, that's not true, there's always the modding community and their works like remasters of Mob of the Dead, Five and Buried
 

Kalentan

Member
Why can't we have custom Zombie games with infinite lives or save and continue. I mean I can understand that ranked modes end the game when everyone dies. But private custom matches should have the option to save and continue or infinite lives etc.

Sometimes I just want to explore and find all easter eggs but the mode lately is so overly complicated it's almost impossible to complete everything.

...That would hands down ruin the mode. A thing in the community is solving the Easter Eggs as they come out and failing and then succeeding. If you could just do a custom game and try over and over cause of infinite lives, then it takes all of the challenge away from it.

Here's the thing. YOU DON'T NEED TO DO EVERYTHING. I feel like players need to get that out of their heads. You don't need to do Easter Eggs to get into high rounds.

-------

Le Sigh, I do admit that I should have realized this was how the thread would turn out.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
...That would hands down ruin the mode. A thing in the community is solving the Easter Eggs as they come out and failing and then succeeding. If you could just do a custom game and try over and over cause of infinite lives, then it takes all of the challenge away from it.

Here's the thing. YOU DON'T NEED TO DO EVERYTHING. I feel like players need to get that out of their heads. You don't need to do Easter Eggs to get into high rounds.

This is my downfall, although I feel as though you aren't doing it right if you don't go for the waster eggs.

I think I just need to buy Chronicles and get into it.
 

Kalentan

Member
This is my downfall, although I feel as though you aren't doing it right if you don't go for the waster eggs.

I think I just need to buy Chronicles and get into it.

I mean really it just comes down to the players. If you feel confident in doing them, do them. But a big thing is that if you just want to survive, you can. The only thing you really need to make sure you do is unlock the pack-a-punch but that isn't an Easter Egg.

In Rave in the Red Woods I survived up into the 40s by only doing Pack-a-Punching. No other Easter Eggs.

Unless your insanely good or playing with others you know, getting into 30s/40s is honestly pretty damn good for Solo.

I need to get into Chronicles more. I bought it at launch but honestly haven't played it that much.
 

Kalentan

Member
How do you pack a punch?

Is it different in each map?

The actual pack-a-punch machine works the same on every map but the method for unlocking it is different.

So for example in Der Eisendrache you will pass by 3 platforms with debris on them. Just run up to them and hold square (a prompt will appear), and on the 3rd platform, the pack-a-punch machine will spawn there.

In Zombies in Spaceland you need to activate the 4 portals near the 4 power switches and go through each portal. Sounds complicated but is actually super simple since the portals are fairly large and hard to miss. Once you go through all 4, the main portal in the center of the map leads to the Projector room which has IW's version of the Pack-a-punch.

The first ever map to have Pack-a-punch, Der Riese had it so you needed to go to 3 spots on the map with their own teleportation machines and link them (in a time limit) to the central machine on the map. Upon linking all 3, the Pack-a-punch will appear.
 

Toa TAK

Banned
Considering zombies has been shit since BO2, I'm not surprised. Lightning struck twice with WaW and BO1 zombies, but everything since hasn't come close.

yo what

Black Ops III is the definitive zombies experience. Especially now that it's even EASIER with the base health being higher and the sandbox weapons being the strongest in the series. It's completely viable to run around with wall weapons. And that's not including the OP wonder weapons across each map (bows, Ray Gun Mark III, Apothican Servant, etc).

Gobblegums make shit even EASIER with all the megas that grant all perks, punched weapons, power ups on the fly, etc. etc. Pack a Punch weapons can be re pap'd forever granting additional upgrades. Black Ops III is the easiest zombies mode ever and it's mind boggling that people are scared/intimidated when you don't have to do any easter eggs, and the game is already being served to the player on a silver plate.

What's the hardest BOIII map? Zetsobu No Shima? LOL I'll grant that Shadows of Evil isn't the best intro to the mode for players both new and old, but it's become a classic. Now with Zombies Chronicles old favorites return in the Black Ops III foundation making harder maps easy (Origins, Moon).

Naw, Black Ops II was the weakest of the zombies experience. The most experimental next to Black Ops. Black Ops III is Treyarch finally hitting their stride on both the basic foundation of each map and making fun easter eggs with a hell of a finish in each one that feels rewarding.

Black Ops III zombies keeps you busy and on your toes for the set up. The game has it all now, for people who want to do more than get bored after 20+ rounds of camping or training (don't worry, we've got The Giant, Kino, WAW maps, and Moon for that). Black Ops III has the best zombies mode, and I can't help but feel that people simply don't want to give it it's due for lack of trying.
 

KDC720

Member
I know its not a traditional zombie map, but I think Dead Ops Arcade deserves a mention in the OP as well, I thought it was a neat if not somewhat shallow take on the mode.
 

derFeef

Member
Always interested in those, but not really in CoD - wish they would sell that seperately. Also is it solo-able? I play ZAT and KF2 for example solo as well.
 
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