The VergeAfter years of Call of Duty Zombies featuring as a tie-in to main Call of Duty games, fans are still asking one question. Why isn’t this being sold separately?
Zombies is easily one of the most addictive modes that makes up the behemoth of a franchise that is Call of Duty. Since its first appearance in World at War – originally called Nazi Zombies – it quickly gained popularity for its manic co-op gameplay.
Eurogamer spoke to Jason Blundell, director of campaign and Zombies for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, to find out the process that goes into making Zombies, and why it isn’t as simple as producing a standalone game.
He explains:
While it’s a lovely sentiment on the idea of breaking Zombies out into its own separate game, we see that people move between all three modes, [campaign, multiplayer and Zombies] and we’re always about giving as much content, as much value for money, as we possibly can. That’s why we pack our disc with as many game modes as we have currently.
Zombies has its own storyline and narrative, separate from the main Call of Duty series. This time around, Zombies is set in a film-noire world where Hollywood superstars Ron Perlman, Heather Graham, Neal McDonough and Jeff Goldblum must fight for survival in the wave-based survival mode.
Blundell continues:
What started as being very much a bonus mode in Zombies has now become a third pillar. We have this massive campaign now. We’ve got the juggernaut, which is multiplayer. And now for the first time Zombies has taken off as being a full-on experience. It’s really about flexibility and variety of choice for the amount of people who buy our games.
If you’ve got time, the full interview is well worth a read as Blundell goes into more depth about the upcoming game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 releases November 6 on PS4, Xbox One and Windows PC. The game will also ship on PS3 and Xbox 360 where the single player campaign has been cut.
Mark is the Gaming Editor for UNILAD. Having grown up a gaming addict, he’s been deeply entrenched in culture and spends time away from work playing as much as possible. Mark studied music at University and found a love for journalism through going to local gigs and writing about them for local and national publications.