One Thing Will Make or Break Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies

The launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is now just around the corner, with Treyarch having already given fans a solid impression of what to expect from the title. With the game reportedly being in development for four years, huge amounts of expectations are being placed on the campaign, core multiplayer, and Zombies modes for the project. Treyarch has also been vocal about the supposed return to classic gameplay that this new iteration of Zombies is attempting to capture, putting even more pressure on the survival mode.

The currently confirmed maps for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s Zombies have already been met with mixed reactions by the game’s community, with the title seemingly still having reservations about what kind of experience CoD Zombies should provide at its core. While the post-launch maps of Black Ops 6 Zombies will be extremely important for the mode’s success, the seasonal content aimed at Zombies will likely be its lifeblood.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Seasonal Zombies Content Needs to Be Impressive

One of the main appeals of Black Ops 6‘s Zombies is its return to the classic round-based formula that made the mode so iconic, moving further away from the controversial open-world Outbreak formula of more recent CoD titles. This has been complimented by the return of a core cast of playable Zombies characters, with many fans praising the respect that Treyarch is paying towards some fan-favorite past Zombies iterations.

This perspective was somewhat hindered by the reveal of Liberty Falls, one of Black Ops 6‘s two launch Zombies maps, with this particular experience seeming much more in line with the divisive elements of Outbreak Zombies. Of course, more maps will be added to Black Ops 6 Zombies throughout the game’s post-launch life, but more will need to be done to supplement the mode in between these massive additions.

Call of Duty has firmly entrenched itself in the live-service seasonal content approach of many modern games, with new content being periodically added to its core multiplayer and Warzone modes every couple of months or so. While it is fairly common for these multiplayer seasons to introduce new 6v6 maps for CoD‘s core multiplayer, the more intricate and larger maps associated with Zombies cannot be released with this kind of rapid turnaround.

Limited-time Modes Could Be the Key To Keeping Black Ops 6’s Zombies Fresh

This puts Zombies in the unique live-service position of having to rely on other content to keep fans engaged between the massively anticipated release of new maps, and this content will be extremely important in shaping the overall legacy of Black Ops 6‘s Zombies. To boost the content in between map releases, Black Ops 6‘s Zombies should lean more heavily into limited-time modes for Zombies, with a focus on bringing back some fan-favorite past experiences.

The Grief game mode from Black Ops 2‘s Zombies is one example of a mode that could periodically return for Black Ops 6, which saw teams of players hinder and outlast their opponents in a range of Zombies locations. Grief was originally intended to return in Black Ops 4 before being scrapped, and the special place it holds in the history of Black Ops Zombies makes it the perfect match for Treyarch’s approach to more classic gameplay. More limited-time modes can recontextualize pre-existing maps and make them feel fresh in the downtime between new maps, and Treyarch should pay real attention to this for the seasonal Zombies content of Black Ops 6.