Highlights

  • Call of Duty Zombies has struggled to provide adequate post-launch support in the last several years.
  • Modern Warfare 3 players report losing acquisitions and containment levels, highlighting persistent issues in post-launch support for the zombie mode.
  • Upcoming titles like Call of Duty 2024 must prioritize resolving issues in post-launch maintenance and content.

Call of Duty Zombies is arguably deeper than most zombie modes from first-person shooter games. Unlike the zombie modes in its FPS counterparts like Counter Strike 1.6 back in the day, the zombie mode in Call of Duty, which started from Call of Duty: World at War in 2009 was much more nuanced, similar to more undead-centric gameplay from the likes of Left 4 Dead. At the same time, however, the zombie mode, while bringing forth casual fun times for the community, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere lately. Much like in the Aether storyline, Call of Duty Zombies has a cycle to break.

Although grinding for mastery camos and finishing the Easter eggs in Call of Duty: Vanguard could’ve been fun for some, its graphics and gun models were questionable. Plus, while there are many fun storylines in Call of DutyZombies including the Chaos Storyline, which was first introduced in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, or the Exo Zombies featured in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, connection, and rubberbanding problems post-launch Vanguard raised a fair share of concerns that never really got properly addressed. Not to mention, the inability to properly pause solo games, and the lack of variety with the perk system, among other things, leading up to Call of Duty: MW and beyond.

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Issues Faced By the Call of Duty Zombie Players in Modern Warfare 3

It has been a while since Vanguard came into town only to have zombie players rolling, fidgeting, and complaining but that has still not stopped. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, also, more recently, has been facing multiple issues with its zombie mode lately. As per the official Trello board managed by Sledgehammer Games & Treyarch, many players report losing the contents of their acquisition stashes after an exfil or entering the Zombies menu. Another card under the known issues list for zombie mode states that player containment levels are being knocked back a tier when exfiltrating from a dark aether rift or a story mission. While the latter issue card in the Trello board is still under investigation, the former is being monitored, and its description:

"Thank you for your reports! We actively began investigating this issue shortly after the launch of Season 1 and are looking to address it as soon as possible."

However, despite the prompt developer response, the issue still persists for some reason. This stagnation is something that Vanguard and MW3 share. The lack of post-launch support is even more strongly felt because up until Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's Zombies mode, the developers focused on listening to the issues faced by players and resolving them. For instance, the rampage inducer was a direct response from the devs when the players gave feedback about the game being too easy. It increased the total number of rounds from 20 to 55 while making the game progressively difficult. The perk system was also much better in Black Ops Cold War.

The Developers Have Resolved Dozens of Issues in the Past Year

While Call of Duty Zombies has a plethora of known issues in play lately, it shouldn't overshadow the fact that the developers have resolved dozens of issues for the community since October 2023. For instance, a few of the resolved issues include players falling from the CoD Zombies exfil helicopter at the edge of the map when departing from the Sub Pen, weapon names being replaced with placeholder text, and players automatically being queued into the story just for being qualified, among others.

However, the whole narrative unfolds on the very basis that the Zombies mode takes off drenched with bugs, with little-to-no exciting updates to look forward to. When the support finally arrives, the gameplay has already become either too dull or the community has begun looking forward to the next year's installment.

Call of Duty 2024 Must Break This Cycle

Infinite Warfare was perhaps the last Call of Duty Zombies to have a good reception. The 2016 game is loved by the community to date and was developed by Infinity Ward — the same studio that developed the beloved Aether storyline for the franchise. Now, every year the CoD community gets a brand-new title and this year’s title, which hasn’t been unveiled yet, must touch base on the post-launch support issues. While the Trello board has been there for a while now, most CoD players hardly pay heed to it because it barely gets addressed and most issues never even make it to the board.

It's no secret that this delay in addressing these issues has resulted in alienating the longtime fans of Call of Duty Zombies as well. The post-launch support for the zombie mode has been in a downward spiral for a while now, and it's high time that the franchise breaks the cycle.