Watch On

You know a Treyarch Call of Duty game is on the horizon when rabid fans start throwing around lingo I left behind in the 2010s like “Pack-a-Punch”, “Juggernog,” and “Speed Cola.” That’s right, Zombies is back on the menu in Black Ops 6, and Treyarch is getting back to basics. That means the PvE horde mode is round-based again, and not borrowing the Warzone map like last year’s Modern Warfare 3.

A 44-part Zombies “intel barrage” published by Activision today covers how Black Ops 6 Zombies will work in excruciating detail. We’ve got classic enclosed maps (two at launch by the sound of it), unlockable routes, power-ups, Perk-a-Colas, the random box—everything a helplessly nostalgic 27-year-old grasping at the salad days of 2008 horde modes could possibly ask for.

Black Ops 6 Zombies is building off of the well-liked format of 2020’s Cold War, with its crafting system and permanent upgrades, and deliberately pretending last year’s Modern Warfare Zombies thing didn’t really happen (though it was surprisingly good for what was essentially a DMZ mod). It’s a play on familiarity, but with a few new features that actually excite this lapsed Zombies player. Such as: Hey, you can save your progress in a Zombies match and come back later? Who woulda thunk we’d see the day.

“For the first time in Zombies, you can elect to save your Solo match at any time, provided you are at full health, aren’t downed, dead, or actively engaged in an Exfil,” the blog reads. “Load the save file to continue. Again, if enough time passes while you’re AFK, the game will automatically save your game state so you won’t lose your progress!”

Activision says saving is one of the features meant to mitigate the potential headaches of Black Ops 6 Zombies’ always-online requirement (boo), but I can see saves having a huge effect on how people engage with the mode going forward. Yes, it’s a solo only thing, but Zombies has always been the videogame equivalent of a train with no brakes—gunning forward at full speed until one disastrous crash finally brings it all to a stop. Going the distance is usually a long time commitment. It still will be for co-op lobbies (the best way to play Zombies anyways), but bringing saves into the mix is a welcome acknowledgement from Treyarch that lots of people grind these modes alone, so why not let them pause and come back later?

You might need that cooldown period the deeper you get into a match, because Black Ops 6 Zombies will also be harder than Cold War. Once a Zombies match reaches the “higher” rounds (not sure exactly which round that is), stronger zombies enter the map.

“Zombies start to move with an increased swiftness, from shamble to run, to sprint. It becomes even more critical to learn escape and circular routes as well as every zombie spawn nest, lest you’re hemmed in and overwhelmed in seconds,” the blog reads. “The horde itself grows as the rounds increase, as does the frequency of Armored and Heavy Zombies, Manglers, the more revolting parasitical entities, as well the grotesque Amalgams.”

The cherry on top of the difficulty spike: Self-Revives purchases are limited to three per match, putting an end to what I imagine was the most reliable strategy to stay alive in previous Zombies iterations. I’m barely scratching the surface of this absolute tome of a blog post—suffice to say if you have any other questions about how Zombies works this year, read on.