I have never played Call of Duty Zombies mode for zombies. It may seem like a curious and even surprising somersault for those not used to this way, but for me the zombies are there as a supporting actor with the aim of adding a little more sauce to the mix. The bait, however, has always been exploration .
If the games in Zombies mode stand out for something, it is because of that feeling of discovery and improvement that each new surprise on the map offers. A path that you had not gone through, a new step in the quest to unveil the Easter egg of that map, and a setting and level design that is worth stopping to admire.
My experience with zombie mode
Looking at all of that, you want to know what I think about zombies? That bother me .
Not in a bad way, mind you. It’s a joy to blow their heads off, slash them open in the first rounds and watch them fly into a thousand pieces after a well-placed grenade, but the trick of popping their legs at the last of the round was invented to leave you alone while you explored the map to your ball and without interruptions it was for something.
Are they an essential part of the experience? Undoubtedly. Would it have fallen into the networks of dozens of maps adding hours and hours if their grace was simply to annihilate zombies ? Not a joke.
Although there are not a few players who went to Zombies mode in search of that type of experience, that of improving weapons while killing more and more bugs, my point of view was completely opposite. They are there and they create a challenge that must be faced, but they have never been the main claim .
Outbreak turns zombies upside down
With that preamble and the cards on the table we come to Outbreak, the new mode of the Zombies experience in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in which everything I liked is abandoned to focus almost exclusively on annihilating zombies.
Goodbye, carefully crafted labyrinthine and claustrophobic settings. Hello, open world scenarios closer to Warzone than what we were used to.
Goodbye to Easter eggs and the secrets involved in going one step at a time to discover a bigger secret. Hello to random events, freedom of action, and removable missions.
And as much as after those words the bile soup can smell for miles, I must admit that the new Outbreak mode has not only seemed a real joy to me, it has also made me see the confrontations against zombies from a new perspective. If they bothered me before, now I can’t help looking for them .
A twist worth trying
With no exploration or Easter eggs to get lost in marveling at the details, Treyarch focuses on the action to offer us an objective mode in which we set the limit of how far we want to go. It is not a map with a beginning and an end, but a series of rounds that will take us from one map to another until we say enough.
With a central objective that changes game after game and that moves in the classics, protect this area or kill that bug, Brote throws us into huge worlds of different styles -the snow slopes, the forest, the mountain town- in the You have to wander around in search of weapon chests, zombies to kill for points, and random events.
Something like mixing Warzone with Zombies mode but giving more weight to the first than the second. The classic cooperative shooting festival in which you face hordes of enemies that appear without rest and that put your skill and group strategy to the test.
Along the way, all that magic is lost that, I hope, Treyarch will never abandon, but it is won in spectacle and in action with which to have a good time without any pretensions than hitting four shots while you share a laugh.
Do you get tired of it? Well, when you complete the objective, you ask for the extraction and you end the game. Do you see yourself with the strength to move on? Well, you travel to a new map with a generous increase in difficulty and see how far you are able to continue .
While it is true that giving wings to these types of experiences seems like a shot in the foot, I can’t help but admit that I have had a really good time in the few games I have enjoyed so far.
I would not abandon the Zombies experience for the world – and here I must admit that what has been delivered so far in Black Ops Cold War seems a point below other editions – but Outbreak is the perfect way to continue leveling up weapons and killing zombies when you have already burned the easter eggs of the classic maps.
Call of Duty Guides
- How to get the Juggernog for free on the Zombie Base map of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- Best Black Ops Cold War weapons for Call of Duty Warzone
- Best Black Ops Cold War weapons: tier list of sniper rifles with stats
- Best Black Ops Cold War weapons: assault rifle tier list with stats
- Warzone server crash: how to fix connection issues in Call of Duty Warzone
