Summary
For many,Call of DutyZombiesis home to countless beloved memories. Many old school players may think back to training on the Kino Der Toten stage or camping on the Der Riese catwalk, while newer fans will think back to wielding elemental bows or riding a dragon. Story lovers can talk for hours about alternate timelines and characters like Edward Richtofen, while gameplay fans can spend an entire day doing tier lists for maps and weapons. Unfortunately, despite all this good will fans have forCall of DutyZombies, Treyarch is unlikely to please everyone with its next game.
CoDZombies fans need only take one look at the discourse aroundCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s open-world mode to get an idea of the situation at hand. The community is entirely split on the concept, with some gamers being open to the idea of another Outbreak-like experience and others disappointed in the lack of round-based gameplay. For every player thrilled aboutleaping off buildings with PhD Flopper, there is someone furious with the lack of a main quest. Ultimately, this is somethingCall of DutyZombies seems doomed to suffer from, as the mode means something different to too many groups of people.
Call of Duty Zombies Cannot Satisfy Everyone
TheCall of DutyZombies situation is comparable to that of the present day Marvel Cinematic Universe.Just like the MCU,Call of DutyZombies was once a mode that could do no wrong, as even failures like TranZit did not push fans away. Nearly every release was celebrated, with fans eager to see what new story and gameplay experiences awaited them in each map pack. However, that eventually changed, and now players will find a community that is split on essentially every issue. Much like the latest MCU projects all have detractors, so to do Treyarch’s newer Zombies releases. Players expect different things fromCoDZombies just like fans want different things from MCU projects, with some craving solo stories and others wanting moments that move the plot forward, some hating the addition of Disney + shows while others love them, and some liking experimental projects while others miss the old formula.
Call of DutyZombies, like the MCU, has unfortunately expanded in too many different directions, meaning that every project will not satisfy the tastes of every fan. While this was seen on a small scale with maps like Zetsubou No Shima’s divisive plant system, or cult classic modes like Grief, it has reached new heights in recent years.Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s perk system was seen as too much of a change by many, while some argued it was a necessary step away from crutchperks like Juggernog. Many miss the Chaos story every day, while some could care less that it was abandoned. There are players that miss the old storytelling style that leaned into community theories, and others who are happy to have information presented more clearly. And, as shown byCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3Zombies, open-world experiences are a love-it-or-hate-it approach.
Call of DutyZombies being so experimental is a double-edged sword for the mode. BecauseTreyarchhas added open-world experiences like Outbreak that some fans have fallen in love with, it needs to keep delivering them. At the same time, crafting that open-world content takes resources, meaning that there will be less opportunities to deliver traditional survival maps. WithCall of DutyZombies still being treated as just a third game mode, Treyarch only has so much time and money to dedicate to each experience. This stops each mode from being all it can be, resulting in round-based maps with less original settings and open-world experiences reusing multiplayer and Warzone locations.
Unless Activision decides to give fans theCall of DutyZombies standalone game they have been wanting for years, it is hard to imagine every group being satisfied. With even the sillyM14 vs. Olympia Gang memeserving as an example of how divided the community is, it is hard to imagine any single mode uniting everyone like the early iterations of Zombies did. Whether it is round-based fans, open-world fans, Easter egg fans, or story fans, oneCall of DutyZombiesgroup will likely always get the short end of the stick.
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