Highlights
- Call of Duty Zombies fans appreciate the deep and complex story of the game, which explores time travel, aliens, dragons, and alternate dimensions.
- While a traditional campaign with cutscenes and setpiece-heavy missions could be a nice change of pace, fans should be aware that a Call of Duty Zombies campaign has been attempted before, but didn't meet expectations.
- The bonus mode called Nightmares in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 was a reskinned version of the BO3 campaign with a separate story, but it didn't gain much popularity due to a lack of unique content and original characters. Lessons should be learned from Nightmares for future attempts at a Zombies campaign.
While casual Call of Duty Zombies fans will simply see the mode as a fun co-op experience that is entirely built around entertaining gameplay, dedicated CoD Zombies players will be fully aware of how deep the story is. While the Chaos story remains unfinished, and the Dark Aether narrative has simplified things quite a bit, the Aether timeline is wildly complex. Time travel, aliens, dragons, alternate dimensions - all of these topics were covered, with the mode also exploring characters that ranged from United States presidents to mad Nazi scientists. As convoluted as it was, it became beloved, and many have wanted to see the Zombies story told in a clearer format.
Considering that even a complete Call of Duty Zombies timeline is hard to follow and leaves certain questions unanswered, it is hard not to see the upside of a traditional campaign filled with cutscenes and setpiece-heavy missions. While Zombies should always offer round-based survival experiences, it could be a nice change of pace to experience a solo (or co-op) campaign that highlights the great 10-year story that Treyarch told within Zombies. However, while fans continue to call for this mode, it’s important to acknowledge that a Call of Duty Zombies campaign has technically happened before. While it was hardly the one that fans wanted, it could provide some lessons for Treyarch if it ever takes another shot at the concept.
Call of Duty Zombies Can Fix Multiple Criticisms With One Small Change
By making one tiny adjustment to the early game experience, Call of Duty Zombies can address recent complaints fans have had about the mode.
What Was Nightmares in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3?
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s campaign was arguably the most unique story offering in the series’ long history. With skill trees that provided bombastic, futuristic abilities as well as a close focus on co-op gameplay, it felt different from all the series’ other story modes. This extended to its narrative, as the mode not only told its story out of order, but told a second “real” story in the briefing text at the start of each mission. While this type of indirect storytelling will not appeal to everyone, it was a bold move for a Call of Duty game. If that was not enough, Treyarch repurposed the campaign missions to tell a third story, which just so happened to feature Zombies as the main enemy type.
Called Nightmares, this bonus mode was essentially a reskinned campaign with all the same story mission areas and cutscenes. New dialogue was overlayed over said scenes to tell a separate story, focusing on a few different characters. Though it lacked the large hordes and constant fighting seen in Zombies maps like Der Eisendrache and Shadows of Evil, players did acquire new weaponry from a Mystery Box as they progressed through the reskinned missions.
As for why Nightmares did not take off, there are a few things to consider. First, while it can now be accessed from the main menu instantly, in the game’s early days players had to either beat the campaign or input a special code like with the original Black Ops’ secret terminal to unlock Nightmares. More problematic is that the mode offered no fresh content or original characters, with the dubbed cutscenes feeling cheap to many fans and the missions playing like less polished versions of the main campaign levels. Worst of all, though, is that fans always wanted a Zombies campaign that focused on established characters like Richtofen and Maxis. A trippy story about demigods and a random female soldier stuck between life and death may have been interesting if it was accompanied by some proper resources and unique assets, but even then, it was a far cry from the thriving Aether story.
With so much working against this bonus mode, it is no wonder that it was quickly forgotten about - that is if players even knew it existed in the first place. Still, this should not stop Treyarch from trying a Zombies campaign again one day, especially if a standalone Call of Duty Zombies game ever happens. Instead, lessons should be learned from Nightmares. The next Zombies campaign needs to offer unique missions, cutscenes, and locations, focus on characters fans know and love, and be easily accessible from day one. If it does those things, it could be more than the bonus mode that Nightmares was, instead being a major feature for Zombies fans to get fully invested in.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is available now on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
