Fresh off the review from my colleague Jason, I am here to make a confession. I actually had a lot of fun playing Call Of Duty Black Ops 6 multiplayer mode simply titled as Zombies. Sure I'm a fan of Left 4 Dead, G.T.F.O, and any game where you shoot down endless hordes of creatures with your friends. I even played The Descent for a bit, which is more of a top down shooter, but I digress. I have two Call of Duty streams on my content pages. Who am I?
This isn't a review, per se, but it is a full resolution of "don't knock it 'til you try it." I will also bring to light that if not for Game Pass, this would've been a no for me, so I'm glad I made the space for the 137 GB monstrosity. I just wanted to clear the air. I know nothing about this game. I have seen the toxicity it produces, and the realism does nothing for me. Beautiful game, just not my cup of tea.
I do love Zombies though. You can play the game solo, or with a team, and you can't just go in tearing things up. You need reps. You need strategy. You need to run. And you need to die. You will do all of those things. Once you ready up with your pew pew 9mm weapon, and your knife, once you learn how to use it (Thanks, Loot Lovas Lounge), you're off and running. You're told to hit some markers on a map, and to hit those markers, you need essence. Not the magazine, even though you use magazines in this game. I got off track.
As you maul through zombies, you realize they come in rounds, and the longer the rounds, the more zombies that come. You get essence from killing these freaks, and use that to get through laser barriers and get to the next checkpoints. You can also use essence to set traps for the zombies, like electric fields, and a standee that shoots laser beams from her eyes. Essence also gets you new guns, and more armor slots (Thanks, DJ Coolbreeze), but it doesn't stop there.
Essence will get you upgrades to your weapons, and your operators. You can get different stamina perks, and something called "pack a punch", which upgrades THE WEAPON IN YOUR HAND (thanks, Me) with max ammo, and bullet power. You can also get one for melee purposed, and punch the dim lights out of some brain dead heads. Lastly, you can get ammo from an ammo crate for a smooth 250. That isn't the only in game currency though.
You can also pick up salvage, dropped sometimes by your undead enemies. Salvage is the same idea, except it can only be used a certain stations. You can upgrade the rarity of your current weapon, or add napalm, or electricity to the weapon you currently wield. If it can't be upgraded, the game will tell you. All of this, while running from Zombies, and waiting for an extraction, is the name of the game. Except, we never made it to extraction.
This is where the loadout comes in. The loadout doesn't come to you until you hit level 5, and then you can change your starting weapon. Weapons level up as you use them, so if you want to unlock a new weapon in the assault rifle category, you're going to have to level up. You will eventually be able to augment your weapon as well. I just upgraded my sub machine gun because I used it a lot., and now it's more powerful, but there are diminishing returns. You can also change your tactical and lethal weapons, so instead of a regular grenade, you can start out with C4. You can pick those up in the field.
The gobblegum, and the Field upgrades are still something I am not privy on. I don't know how to trigger them, and my gobblegum load out is absurd, as I tried to get rare and even legendary ones to pop up. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's ok. I don't either. If anyone wants to go to the comments on my streams and tell me, it would be very appreciated.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available right now, in bundles. Or get that sweet sweet Game Pass, and don't shell out another dime more than the monthly subscription. While some people only want to play one mode, and won't branch out for fun (Thanks for nothing, Charles), I invite you. Give Zombies a shot. I can't believe I just typed that.