While developing Black Ops 6 Zombies, Treyarch sought to refine what they established with Black Ops Cold War, introduce new elements to the mode, re-add old aspects from previous games, and make it more approachable for new players. Marketing for the mode began in June 2024 during the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase event; a full reveal debuted in August. Upon release, Black Ops 6 Zombies received positive reviews from critics, who praised its core gameplay format and launch maps. A continuation of its story is featured in the Zombies mode for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (2025).
Gameplay
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies is a cooperativevideo game[1] played from a first-person or third-person perspective.[2] Like previous versions of Call of Duty'sZombies mode, players use a selection of military equipment, such as weapons, "field upgrades", and special "wonder weapons",[1][3] to combat endless hordes of zombies, which increase in both number and difficulty with every completed round. Up to four players can play together in a match;[4] solo matches are also available, with the ability for players to pause and save their progress in them.[5]
Black Ops 6 Zombies features six playable maps, "Liberty Falls", "Terminus", "Citadelle des Morts", "The Tomb", "Shattered Veil", and "Reckoning",[6] which directly continue the mode's storyline following Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020).[7][8] Each map includes a main quest that players must solve without any guidance, along with a number of side quests and easter eggs.[2] Two additional game modes—"Directed" and "Grief"—were added to all maps post-launch;[9][10] the former allows players to complete main quests with in-game assistance,[9] while the latter pits two teams of four players against one another as they attempt to survive the undead, while hindering the enemy team indirectly via debuffs.[10]
While in a match, players have two main currencies to manage: "Essence" and "Salvage"; Essence is used to unlock access to new parts of the maps, acquire weapon upgrades from the "Pack-a-Punch" machine, and to purchase additional player upgrades, including "Perk-a-Cola" cans and armor vests, while Salvage is used to acquire ammo modifications for the player's weapons, increase a weapon's damage tier, and to craft various pieces of lethal and tactical equipment.[2] Players can also obtain "GobbleGums"—single-use consumables that grant various in-game effects—and unlock "Augments", a set of minor and major upgrades to perks, field upgrades and ammo mods. Each perk, field upgrade, and ammo mod features up to three minor and major Augments, with one of each type being equipable at the same time, allowing players to customize and experiment with different play styles.[4]
Plot
In February 1991, a zombie incursion from the "Dark Aether" dimension occurs at the West Virginian town of Liberty Falls, during which the Director of the former CIA group "Requiem" and the classified operation "Project Janus", Edward Richtofen, goes missing. Meanwhile, former KGB scientist Dr. William Peck and smuggler Maya Aguinaldo free Requiem's senior staff—Special Officer Grigori Weaver, Doctors Elizabeth Grey and Oskar Strauss, Major Mackenzie Carver, and Captain Stoney "Raptor One" Maddox—from their imprisonment at Terminus Island, a remote Project Janus research facility in the Philippine Sea.[a] Peck proposes that they hunt down Richtofen, while Maya seeks to rescue her brother Nathan, who is also imprisoned at Terminus. A second breach occurs simultaneously with the one at Liberty Falls, forcing the team to fend off zombies. After locating and killing a mutated Nathan, and neutralizing Terminus's head scientist Revati Modi with help from the Synaptic Algorithm Module (S.A.M.)—an artificial intelligence system designed by Richtofen based on the personality of Requiem ally Samantha Maxis—Requiem learns that Richtofen hired the French Syndicate, a crime family based in the Mediterranean principality of Avalon, to locate the "Sentinel Artifact", an object of power that controls a primordial substance known as "Prima Materia". Believing that the Artifact may be key to freeing Maxis from the Dark Aether, the team sets Avalon as their next destination.
A week after the outbreaks at Liberty Falls and Terminus, Requiem travels to a village in Avalon and finds Requiem informant Sergei Ravenov, who still mourns the loss of Maxis. Ravenov, who was employed by the Syndicate, reveals that they were paid to interrogate demonologist Gabriel Krafft for information, though he refused to speak. Requiem enters a near-by castle and find Krafft imprisoned within its dungeon. With Krafft's assistance, the team recovers the "Obscurus Altilium", an amulet that can help them locate the Artifact, but is unable to save Krafft from succumbing to the zombies. In his dying breath, Krafft tells Requiem to go to an excavation site nearby, warning them not to let the Artifact consume them; he also begs them to not kill Richtofen, who he reveals to be his adopted son. At the excavation site, the amulet shows Requiem echoes of the past, where archeologist Sir Archibald Fotherington-Smythe attempted to uncover the Artifact in 1908. With Sir Archibald's indirect help, the team teleports to a Dark Aether Nexus, and discovers the Artifact within it. Following a series of trials, they acquire the Artifact, combine it with the amulet, and exfil from the site.
Three days later, at S.A.M.'s behest, Requiem arrives at Richtofen's mansion in Liberty Falls, where they perform three rituals to power up the Artifact with Prima Materia and give her the charged Artifact; S.A.M. then teleports the team to a room where Richtofen is imprisoned. Richtofen confronts Weaver and reveals that he and Maxis were responsible for a failed assassination hit on the former in 1981, which resulted in the deaths of Richtofen's wife and son, Mary and Samuel. Since then, Richtofen has researched various methods to resurrect them, while Weaver was hand-picked for Requiem to keep him in check. After the team forms a truce with Richtofen and escapes the mansion via a device in the latter's possession, they learn that S.A.M. intends to use the Artifact to recreate and inhabit Maxis' body, giving her full control over the Dark Aether. The group then heads toward Janus Towers, a former nuclear facility located nearby, where the Aether reactors are approaching meltdown.
At Janus Towers, Requiem helps stabilize the reactors in the sublevel area, while Richtofen attempts to confront S.A.M. The team later encounters "the Forsaken", the entity responsible for various Dark Aether outbreaks during the 1980s who was contained in 1985.[a] The Forsaken attempts to escape following a power surge, but is defeated and turned into a weapon, the Gorgofex. Ultimately, Requiem is faced with a decision: to help S.A.M. create a human body, or to help Richtofen resurrect his family; either choice results in the other becoming hostile. Regardless of the choice, Requiem emerges triumphant, but is teleported by the Artifact into the Dark Aether, where they are greeted by an alternate version of Richtofen and his three companions: "Tank" Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki.
Development
Black Ops 6 Zombies was developed by Treyarch as a core component of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024).[11] Associate design director Kevin Drew described it as a refinement of what the studio established with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020), while also introducing both new elements to the mode and aspects from previous games.[12] Drew felt it was important to add certain elements that the team was not able to bring to Black Ops Cold War due to development challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic; one of these things was a set playable crew that evolves throughout the game's narrative via cinematics and "emergent" gameplay moments.[13]:9:03-9:33 He also wanted to "bring Zombies to more people" by making it more approachable for new players and enabling them to reach higher rounds.[13]:13:19-13:51 Due to the then-ongoing SAG-AFTRA video game strike, Activision recast some voice actors from previous games, including Zeke Alton and Julie Nathanson.[14]
Marketing and release
Activision and Microsoft revealed initial details about Black Ops 6 Zombies during a "Direct" presentation for Black Ops 6, which aired as part of the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase event on June 9.[15] Following the publishing of teasers on a website titled "The Truth Dies",[16] and a cinematic trailer for the map "Terminus",[17] a gameplay trailer was released on August 8, along with a blog post outlining the mode's core gameplay systems.[18][19] Further details about Black Ops 6 Zombies were revealed at the 2024 Call of Duty: Next showcase event on August 28.[20]
The mode was released alongside Black Ops 6 on October 25, 2024, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.[21] It was made available to subscribers of select Xbox Game Pass plans on release day, including Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass for Console;[22] it is also available via select cloud gaming platforms, including GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming.[23][24] Post-release, Treyarch supported Black Ops 6 Zombies with seasonal updates, which added new playable content to the mode, such as maps, perks, limited-time modes, and in-game events.[25][26][27][28] A continuation of its story is featured in the Zombies mode for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (2025).[29]
Reception
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Black Ops 6 Zombies received positive reviews; critics liked the mode's return to its round-based gameplay format, as opposed to the mode's open world design in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023).[30][31][32][1]IGN's Will Borger gave Zombies an 8/10 rating, stating that the mode is "absurd and campy and amazing and goofy in all the right ways"; he praised the mode's launch maps, "Terminus" and "Liberty Falls", and its hidden quests and easter eggs, but disliked the "deeply annoying" dialogue for its characters.[1]GamesRadar+'s Brown also praised the launch maps, and stated that Black Ops 6's version of Zombies revitalized his love for the mode as a whole.[32]The Guardian's Keith Stuart wrote that Zombies was "fraught and incredibly stressful" but said that it was "a real blast" with friends.[30]
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