Highlights
- To please fans and live up to its predecessors, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies needs to have a massive number of zombies to fight, ensuring intense and tense gameplay.
- In a crowded marketplace of zombie shooters, Modern Warfare 3 Zombies must differentiate itself by offering impressive visuals and a unique gameplay experience with its extraction-based mechanics and overwhelming on-screen enemies.
- Without a sufficient number of undead foes, Modern Warfare 3 Zombies may struggle to compete against other similar shooters already on the market, potentially leading to a quick decline in popularity.
With the long-awaited return of the popular game mode right around the corner, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies is already receiving pushback from some long-time fans of the franchise. Treyarch will likely do its best to ensure that the fan-favorite mode is equally as enjoyable as in past appearances, but complaints about everything from the new map for Modern Warfare 3 Zombies to changes made to the core gameplay loop have left some players feeling wary. To combat these complaints and live up to the legacy of its predecessors, the size of the undead hordes in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies’ Operation Deadbolt will need to be as big as Treyarch’s ambitions for the reimagined mode.
When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 10 for PC and consoles it’s likely that one of the first things many players will do after completing the campaign is hop into the reimagined Zombies mode. Its drastically increased player count and new, DMZ-style extraction mechanics promise to mix up the now-familiar formula, but these changes could also lead to a less-than-ideal experience by slowing down the pace of play. Presenting players with the most overwhelming odds yet for a Call of Duty Zombies entry would ensure the action never slows down and keep the mode feeling fresh in a gaming landscape already awash with zombie shooters.
Modern Warfare 3 Zombies Needs to Put Players Up Against Overwhelming Odds
One of the biggest potential stumbling blocks for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies is the move from 4 to up to 24 players in a round. This move makes sense given the newly open-world format, but players accustomed to the unyielding hordes of undead from previous entries could be disappointed if the repurposed Urzikstan map feels empty. Treyarch needs to give players a truly massive number of zombies to fight as they make their way through the hour-long rounds to ensure the action remains just as tense as in past Zombies modes.
Facing non-stop hordes of foes throughout each match would likely prove to be a difficult fit with the objective-focused gameplay, and a bit tedious, but Treyarch should still make sure that each time the undead do appear in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies they do so in droves. Letting players face off against groups of undead similar in size to the zombie hordes from Days Gone would amp up the action far beyond previous Zombies entries. It could also help MW3 Zombies remain competitive against the countless similar shooters that have popped up on PC and consoles in recent years.
Modern Warfare 3 Zombies Will Have to Compete in a Crowded Marketplace
Debuting in November 2008, only a week before the release of Valve’s legendary Left 4 Dead, the Zombies mode in Call of Duty: World at War helped popularize the now-thriving zombie shooter genre. While each subsequent Zombies entry has built on that initial formula, gamers now have a multitude of undead-filled titles competing for their attention. From single-player shooters like Dying Light 2 to multiplayer zombie survival games like DayZ players have more options than ever, and this means increased competition for Modern Warfare 3 Zombies.
Pairing Modern Warfare 3 Zombies’ extraction-based gameplay with an impressive number of on-screen enemies would make it stand out in an already crowded field. It would also serve as an evolution of the classic mode’s already addictive gameplay and show that, even with its massively increased player count, Modern Warfare 3 Zombies can still capture the fun and fast-paced action of earlier entries.
To live up to the legacy of previous incarnations and remain competitive against similar shooters already on the market Treyarch needs to give players plenty of undead foes to fight in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies. Without this crucial element, this reworked version of the fan-favorite Call of Duty mode could end up dying a faster death than the bullet-riddled zombies inhabiting its open-world battlefield.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 10 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
