Classic Call of Duty Zombies Is Coming Back

Kino Der Toten, Der Riese, Verrückt, and Origins are just a few classic Call of Duty: Zombies maps that have made a comeback over the past few months. Despite these games and maps not being updated in over a decade, players have recently been flocking to them. While there’s no one particular reason, there’s a variety of reasons players have been giving these classics some love.

Why It’s Back

During the Microsoft acquisition of Activision, the servers for the old Call of Duty games were reinstated. This was enough for players to flock back to the games they hadn’t been able to play for years. This was in part due to the small PC boom in 2020. With people being stuck at home during lockdown and the new next gen consoles having limited availability, gaming PC sales were at there highest point in 5 years. Many who had never owned a PC before made the switch. This meant that players could play their old favorites without having to bust out their old generation consoles.

MW3 Zombies leaves a lot to be desired.

More recently, players have returned to the old games because of Modern Warfare 3. Players especially dislike the new Zombies mode, making many players want “old zombies” back. Specifically, many have complained about the open-world and Zombies no longer being round based. Without rounds, zombies feels like it has less payoff. There’s less accomplishment since you can’t break your record or strive to reach a certain round. Of course this isn’t new to Modern Warfare 3. We first saw “roundless” Zombies in Black Ops: Cold War, which also saw heavy criticism. It has been said that the mode feels almost identical to the “DMZ” mode in Warzone, just with zombies. 

Perhaps the biggest reason players are returning is also the simplest: Nostalgia. The Call of Duty series as whole is extremely nostalgic for lots of people, and Zombies was the first introduction for many players. Hard as it is to believe, games like Black Ops II are well over ten years old at this point. World at War is 15 years old at this point. There’s nothing like jumping onto a game that played years ago and reexploring all of the old maps and Easter eggs. Of course, you can never recreate those old memories, but revisiting them with friends is the next best thing.

“Kino der Toten” remains the most nostalgic map for many players.

What Makes It Better?

What makes old Zombies so much better? And why are fans opting to play that over Modern Warfare 3? Of course there is the nostalgia factor which MW3 simply can’t replicate, but there’s more to it than that. Otherwise, Zombies wouldn’t be as popular as it is.

Design

Something that makes the OG Zombies so good is the size of the maps. Sometimes, the smallest maps like “Nacht Der Untoten” and “Town” are some of the best. But typically the mid sized ones like “Der Reise” and “Kino Der Toten” are the ones that fans love the most. One of the first maps to receive largely negative reception is the Black Ops II map “Tranzit”. This was largely in part due to the size of “Tranzit”. It was a large map with the main means of transport being a bus that would drive the player around. The community felt that taking Zombies and making it “big” defeated the whole purpose of the mode. This is part of what players dislike about Zombies in MW3. Taking a warzone sized map and using it makes everything seem unnecessarily large, and is something of a betrayal to what Zombies originally was.

“Der Riese” remastered as “The Giant” in BO3.

Another aspect that players miss is the innovation in Zombies. If there is little changed, it makes more sense to go back and just play what did it better. Much of MW3 Zombies is reused from the campaign and Warzone, with little to set Zombies apart. Let alone giving it anything unique to stand out amongst other Zombies maps. World at War based many of their Zombies maps off of maps from the campaign and multiplayer. However, they made strives to change these maps to fit the zombies setting. There was enough different that they felt like entirely different maps.

Finally the old maps had atmosphere that made them feel alive, or rather, eerily dead. Each World at War map had this, but slowly it faded away as the maps became more goofy. “Verrückt” was the perfect example of this. With horrifying screams and cries of the asylums former occupants. Or more fittingly, the asylums former victims. This made “Verrückt” feel unnerving and gave it a unique feel that set it apart from the rest of the game. This was true for the rest of World at War and for a lot of Black Ops, but slowly it lost this old atmosphere that made the game mode feel more scary.

The World at War multiplayer map, Asylum, was the basis for Verrückt.

Gameplay

The gameplay itself is the biggest downside of the older COD games. Specifically in the movement. Compared to now, the old movement feels sticky and restrictive, especially if you have been playing the newer games recently. Of course, it also only gets worse the further back you go with some elements missing completely. Such as not being able to slide or dolphin dive in World at War. However with a little practice its not too hard to get back into the swing of things.

The biggest thing players like about the old games is the round based Zombies. The lack of rounds changes one of the core mechanics of Zombies. In a 2011 panel, Audio Director, Brian Tuey, stated “One of the rules on the story side is we can’t touch core gameplay. We will never stop the zombie spawns, we will never do a cutscene, everything we do has to happen within that parameter.” Of course they need to innovate and change certain things about the game mode to keep players interested, but not at the risk of the mode’s identity.

The Community Is Back

This resurgence in the games has brought much of the old community back. From Reddit to YouTube, its clear the OG zombies community is active again. This has lead to creators such as KrazyRabb1t making videos about facts and Easter eggs that you didn’t know or don’t remember. Some creators have been able to dedicate full channels to classic COD Zombies content.

In this aspect one hand feeds the other. People return to the games and then get curious and look for these videos on YouTube, or these videos are recommended to them on YouTube, and then they want to play the old games and check out the Easter eggs. Members of the community are also doing covers of the iconic Zombies Easter egg songs such as “Beauty of Annihilation” and “115”.

So if you’re down to relive the glory days, hop on. You’ll definitely be able to find a server.