“Mystery Boxes stashed around the levels add more spice as well, since you never really know which gun they might spit out. I also felt liberated by the fact that there’s no limit on how many mid-game perks you can have, so unlike in previous Zombies modes you never need to second-guess whether it’s worth grabbing one or not. Those are persistent upgrades, but within each match there’s also weapon rarity to keep an eye on: as you progress deeper and purchase more weapons, a higher rarity level denotes better attachments and damage, which gives you motivation to check every gun you come across to see if it’s better than what you have instead of basically forgetting about the loot system after a certain point.
Perhaps most notably are all of the Skills: Field Upgrades are special attacks you charge up over time, like the Frost Blast that slows zombies and Weapon Classes let you specialize and upgrade your loadout with new abilities, such as transforming the rifle butt melee hit with R3 into a knife slash for more damage, which very helpfully conserves ammo. The classic Zombies experience gets a handful of other minor new features as well. I’m a huge fan of that because it means no matter which multiplayer mode you’re playing you’re making meaningful progress rather than being expected to grind ranks in each one individually. This makes use of the unified progression system introduced in last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to make all of the weapon levels, attachments, battle pass unlocks, characters, and so on that you earn in standard Multiplayer also available in Zombies – and vice versa.
Previously, new maps were always paid DLC, but it would seem that Zombies is getting rolled into the ongoing free content plan now.One big shake up to the formula is that, for the first time ever, Black Ops Cold War lets you pick a loadout from Multiplayer to bring with you directly into the Zombies mode.
However, the good news is that Activision is planning free updates and new content over time, just like it does with Multiplayer and Warzone. “That being said, it’s still just one map that only takes around 40 minutes to run through, whereas Black Ops 4 had four at launch, and it absolutely will get old pretty fast because of that. While I’ve never personally been the type to scour for Easter eggs trying to uncover every single reference and throwback, longtime fans will certainly discover plenty of hidden details throughout. The story details are extremely easy to miss, too, because when things get hectic it’s hard to pay attention to voices over the din of the battle. It’s kind of a bummer that your playable cast is the same as the voices in standard Multiplayer – there’s no zany Jeff Goldblum stunt casting here. Naturally, what’s going on are waves upon waves of relentless flesh-eaters who you must slaughter while rebuilding defenses, purchasing upgrades, and venturing deeper into the facility to uncover its secrets. In the main mode, Cold War’s Zombies is generally the same routine it’s been for years now: a dark, mysterious conspiracy is unraveling at an abandoned WW2-era bunker and you and your international team of generic Requiem operatives are dispatched to inspect and find out what’s going on. It’s just a shame they had to drop modes and features that I miss in the process. Gunplay is strong with a handful of additions but Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s Zombies does admittedly skimp out on actually new content by dramatically overhauling an original Zombies map. Like always, you and up to three friends mow down horde after horde, and only survive the higher levels by being smart about what to pick up and what to leave behind. There’s only so far that murdering thousands of zombies on the same map over and over can take you before it gets old, but within those constraints Treyarch has somehow managed to deliver one of the most tightly crafted and fun to play Call of Duty Zombies modes in years.