The Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise has been home to the infamous Zombies game mode for several generations. The action-packed experience has generated a community all its own that enjoys blasting apart hordes of the undead with powerful Black Ops weaponry.

Each generation of the game brings new changes, but those are not always for the best. There are several aspects from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Zombie Campaigns that brought the Zombie experience down from its potential. Although fans enjoyed the mix in content, the new engine caused tons of problems and the extra storyline only went to confuse players further.

The Call of Duty Zombies’ story will likely continue to grow with a Zombies mode in the upcoming Call of Duty 2020 release. There are aspects that the developers could improve upon in the Black Ops Zombies formula, and there are other aspects that fans would rather the developers leave alone. Intrinsic “Zombie” features that when tampered with will disappoint fans and build a different style of zombie killing experiences.

Focused Storyline

Call of Duty’s many Zombie game modes focused on what fans have called the “Aether” timeline. This is the original set of zombie survivors who have, against all odds, survived the impossible. The “Aether” timeline stretches from Black Ops one all the way to the fourth game in the franchise dragging the same cast of characters forward through a building evolution of stories.

For many fans, there is a sense of attachment to the characters and story as players grew up with the release of the games. They were there to see the evolution of the characters, the manipulation of reality itself, and almost every fan knows the jingles for the perk-0-cola machines. This attachment to the massive history found within the Aether timeline was part of the reason that the Chaos timeline was not loved as much. Fans did not have a massive history of attachment with the characters, the world, and the cause of the apocalyptic phenomenon.

Story-wise, a big step in the right direction would be if Call of Duty 2020’s Zombies followed the Aether timeline or even reboot it. A retelling of the classic adventures would be seen as a refreshing blast to the past as players get to relive their favorite maps with possibly different endings. following only one timeline rather than trying to force a second timeline upon the community would allow fans a chance to double down on their already heavy investment. Treyarch and Activision could make great strides with the Zombie community alone by acknowledging the timeline and pushing it even further into the depths of time-travel absurdity.

Move Back Towards Traditional Perks

One of the biggest problems with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s depiction of Zombies was the way that they treated perks. After years of reinforcing perks as these goofy soda machines with a jingle, style, and feel, players felt off about the ominous gods and the new perks with dramatically less history. One of the most popular features from the Zombies game mode is the perk-o-colas which fans have even gone as far as to recreate in real life, and there is an entire mini-culture of Zombie fans built around the sodas themselves giving the perks a famous status on the same level as Nuka-Cola from Fallout. This fascination with the perks makes it vital that the developers return the perk system back to the traditional soda machine style.

There is no great answer for the “obsolete perk” situation as player preference plays a big part in what perks are chosen over others. Rather than adjusting to a non-solvable problem, Activision should focus on the marketability and beloved nature of the traditional perks. Adding new perks to the equation is not necessarily a bad thing, but the same amount of love, depth, and story should be applied. At the bare minimum, each perk deserves a jingle.

A New Engine

One of the biggest and unnecessary features that were added when Zombies appeared in Black Ops 4 was the updated engine. Although the older engine was less quality on a graphics level, the updated engine did not improve it enough to justify the problems that went with it. For the first time in Zombies history, players were met with blue screens, crash reports, and render errors. The number of problems that players had to deal with for the update engine to work was not enough of a trade-off.

Now that fans are looking towards the future of the Zombies franchise, some many have only one request: a new engine that actually works. It is far too late to go back to the way things were in a classic Black Ops scenario, but the Black Ops 4 engine has to be updated and/or replaced. Better graphics are worth the trouble only if the engine can still perform the bloody fast-paced action sequences that fans love from the Zombies mode.

There are tons of different aspects that Treyarch, Activision, and Raven Software should improve upon in the Zombies game mode, but these are the biggest three problems. Fans can forgive poor gunplay and even a slightly buggy system if it still plays and feels like a Zombies round. The story needs to resonate with the player base and echo into the future and past of the Zombies world. The number of secrets, hours fans have spent discovering alternate endings, and depth of the lore involved in Zombies alone justifies giving fans a fully furnished scenario. Fans will be excited for another round to battle the living dead, but it is up to the developers to make it a battle worth remembering as Call of Duty marches towards the future. Fans only hope that as long Call of Duty is standing, Zombies will be “dragged along” with it.

Call of Duty 2020 is in development.