Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies Interview
Black Ops 6 Zombies’ associate design director Kevin Drew answers Restart’s questions on the return to round-based action, the tastiest Gobblegum, and much more.
Posted 15 days ago
Presented with a prison escape against an onslaught of undead, demons, and hideous aberrations, you wouldn’t think the term “rounds” would prove the most exciting element. But where a new Call of Duty Zombies mode is concerned, long-time fans know their priorities.
Following last year’s foray into open-world extraction systems, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies will be returning to the round-based structure the series is best known for – at least in the two launch levels of Terminus and Liberty Falls. Ahead of Black Ops 6’s launch, Restart had the opportunity to ask Treyarch’s associate design director Kevin Drew about the team’s approach to Zombies, his favorite Perk Augments, and, crucially, which of the game’s Gobblegums tastes the best.
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Old ways, new ideas
So yes, Black Ops 6 Zombies is returning to the round-based format that the spinoff mode started with. Much to collective fan relief. But that doesn’t mean the team is content to simply dig old systems from the grave and leave it at that. Like a cabal of cackling evil scientists, Treyarch’s developers are always looking to infuse their shambling hordes with new life.
“Zombies as a mode has always felt a bit like ‘counterculture’ for Call of Duty,” Drew says. “It started off in 2008’s World at War as a hidden mode that players never expected to see in their World War II FPS game, and it’s slowly evolved over the years into its own crazy universe where we have the creative freedom to do things we just can’t do in our single-player campaigns or in multiplayer.
“For the team at Treyarch, it’s much more than simply killing zombies and making it to the highest round you can. Zombies is all about the opportunity to try wild new things in both gameplay and narrative, and seeing how the community reacts to it with each new game.”
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A key addition to Black Ops 6 Zombies comes in the chittering, squelching, and stomping new aberration enemy types. Looking like lost brethren to the Necromorphs of Dead Space or Las Plagas of Resident Evil 4, these corrupted horrors will play a starring role on one of the launch maps.
“On Terminus, players will go up against arachnid-like Vermin that can evolve into Parasites if they’re not careful, and the new Amalgam enemy, which is this walking fusion of multiple zombies into one disgusting horror.”
In addition to novel nasties, the new maps also promise to be crammed full of the extra avenues, secrets, and references to older games that Zombies fans adore uncovering.
“Both of our launch maps are packed with Easter Eggs on day one,” Drew says. “In fact, Terminus might be tied for our highest number of side quests ever in a Zombies map, but I’m sure the community will do that math for us and let us know!
“We always like to include nods to previous games in some of our Easter Eggs here and there, but in a literal sense, we have Edward Richtofen and Samantha Maxis playing pivotal roles in the Dark Aether story that we’re continuing from Black Ops Cold War. Long-time fans will be very familiar with those two characters, and this version of Richtofen in particular has narrative connections to the ending of Black Ops 4 Zombies, as well.”
Zomnimovement
As twisted and monstrous as the inhabitants of Zombies mode may be, they don’t live in isolation. Black Ops 6 Zombies is intrinsically linked to its sibling modes of campaign and multiplayer. That means incorporating shared global mechanics.
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Omnimovement is the series’ shiniest plaything – a traversal system which allows players to sprint and dive in all directions. You might reasonably assume this would give kiting Zombies players a major advantage over their rotting pursuers. But according to the developers, it never pays to underestimate the supernatural.
“The zombies have kept up surprisingly well without a lot of change to the core design,” says Drew. “Omnimovement gives you new options on how to escape the horde but new risks as well. When you are sprinting sideways or backwards, there could still be a threat out of sight that you constantly need to be thinking about. Our more dangerous enemies also have projectile attacks which add another layer of difficulty as well.”
To help players tackle those tougher threats, Black Ops 6 Zombies is introducing Augments. These modifiers – which come in Major and Minor variants – can adjust the effects of Perks, Ammo Mods, and Field Upgrades in unusual ways. The aim is to allow players to craft interesting builds as their experience progresses. Drew’s personal preference is to transform into a burly boxer capable of stealing health from every enemy that meets his fist.
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“I’m a big fan of extending survivability through Augments, so I’ll choose some for Jugger-Nog, Speed Cola, and Melee Macchiato,” explains Drew. “Jugger-Nog gives me 100 more health by default, and it’s got a Major Augment called Turtle Shell that allows Armor to act as a shield on my back, so now I’m living longer and I’m protected from zombies that I can’t see behind me.
“Speed Cola allows me to reload faster and replate Armor more quickly, and I’m going to choose one of its Minor Augments called Quick Swap to switch between weapons faster. Now I’m ready to replate my Armor super-fast when it breaks, and I’m less likely to get caught by a horde of zombies between reloads.
“Last, I’m choosing the new Melee Macchiato Perk because punching zombies across the room is always hilarious, but it also has an amazing Major Augment called Vampiric Extraction that gives me a small amount of health back with every melee attack. By running this combo of Augments when I’ve got these three Perks active, I’m able to stay in the fight longer and even heal myself in a tight spot.”
Welcoming fresh meat
Expanded undead hosts alongside a host of modifiers to meddle with has the potential to sound overwhelming to anyone yet to give Zombies a go. To help first-time zombie slayers acclimatize, Treyarch will be introducing some additional features, some of which will only arrive post-launch.
The first is the ability to save and quit when playing solo. In addition to letting solo high-score hunters break up longer runs, it’ll also grant new players a pressure-free means to try out Zombies before they hop online. Perhaps more interesting is the new Directed Mode, which will only be added to maps a while after they launch.
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“This will guide new players through each step of our main quests while capping the rounds to key milestones, so players who’ve never experienced the story in Zombies will finally have a more casual, guided path to do so. We believe this will grow the community by allowing more people to get their friends into Zombies for the first time, while still rewarding our hardcore players for completing the main quests without an in-game guide.”
Finally, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies reintroducing the power-granting Gobblegums from the series’ past, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to define which of the consumable capsules the developers considered the tastiest.
“You know, I’ve never been asked this question before!” Drew admits. “We have so many to choose from at launch... but I’m going to say Soda Fountain tastes the best, just by the name alone.”
Our thanks to Kevin Drew for taking the time to answer our questions about Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies. Excited to dive in? Study up on all of Black Ops 6’s modes in advance with our campaign Q&A and multiplayer Q&A for the game as well!
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Release Date: October 25, 2024
