YMMV / Call of Duty: Zombies

aka: Nazi Zombies

• Call of Duty
• Modern Warfare
• Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
• Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare
• Call of Duty: WWII

The following Tropes have their own entries:

• Game-Breaker
• Rescued From the Scrappy Heap
• Scrappy Weapon
• That One Level
• That One Sidequest

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A-M

• Abridged Arena Array:
  • For World at War, many players enjoy playing Nacht Der Untoten or Der Riese due to simplicity of the former and introducing many well-known elements of the mode (Pack-a-Punch, teleporters) in the latter.
  • For Black Ops we have the two on-disc maps, Kino der Toten and Five, even though the latter is pretty difficult. Moon is also one of the most played DLC maps both due to being a Wham Episode story-wise and very fun gameplay-wise.
  • Black Ops II has Green Run (which is justified because it is a on-disc map), the separate survival variant of its Town segment (due to having weapons and Perk-a-Cola machines available on the walls, as well as the Pack-a-Punch being available), Mob of the Dead and Origins. The latter two are considered the best levels of Black Ops II Zombies mode as whole.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Victis fell under Base-Breaking Character rather than outright Scrappy by the time of their return in Tag Der Töten , but nonetheless, even their most dedicated of haters felt bad seeing them screwed over for the final time once they are banished to the Dark Aether for their troubles.
• Ass Pull:
  • Retconning Tank Dempsey into Verruckt, done many years after the fact.
  • The two minute cutscene ending Revelations and presumably the entire saga, which still leaves countless questions, and doesn't completely resolve everything that's been brought up in the saga since 2008. This was later addressed with the release of the Zombies timeline.
  • For many, the Sudden Downer Ending of Tag der Toten in which Primis Nikolai admits they were never going to fight in the Great War despite all the hype about it, and lied the entire time to keep the group going. This was seen as especially disappointing after the ominous cliffhanger of Alpha Omega and the fact that every Black Ops IV Aether map was a remaster of old content.
    • Speaking of Tag, Pablo. For years his character had been a sort of semi-joke character with no real meaning on the plot. And then he comes right out of nowhere to save the universe by assisting Victis in giving Nikolai the Device. Not a terrible use for his character, but it is quite jarring.
• Audience-Alienating Era: A brief one was in 2012, shortly after Black Ops II was released. The Victis storyline as whole initially left a sour taste in the mouth of many because of new playable characters who were yet to gain popularity, but most ridicule came because of its levels which had a whole clusterfuck of mechanics that were more dangerous than zombies themselves. TranZit was (and to some, still is) considered the absolute worst map due to intense fog and abuse of lava through the floor, Demonic Spiders sprawling everywhere and the Bus mechanic screwing the player over constantly. Nuketown Zombies has a randomized Perk-a-Cola machines spawn mechanic which leaves you at the mercy of RNG on an already tight spaced map; whereas Die Rise is infamous for its bottomless pits, the maligned elevator mechanic, all of which made incapaciation or death from fall damage very likely. The new perks didn't fare well either, with Tombstone Soda being seen as a joke best known for its So Bad, It's Good jingle and Who's Who being very situational, if not borderline detrimental. Thankfully, Mob of the Dead helped to alleviate the problem with its own new cast, story and gameplay elements, with the next Victis map Buried getting acclaim for improving existing mechanics and being overall more fun and entertaining to play.
• Awesome Music: Has its own page.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The Victis crew, Marlton, Misty, Samuel, and Russman. They suffered from debuting in the worst received map of the series (Tranzit) and then starring in a nearly just as poorly received follow-up (Die Rise) before finishing the run with a fairly decent but lore-unfriendly end map (Buried), alongside general They Changed It, Now It Sucks! sentiment and how viciously unlikable they could be. However, they ended up attracting a following of their own, and many fans became miffed that they were abandoned after Buried. The comics and aspects of Black Ops IIII have improved their standing, with some even wishing for them to be playable again - which did come true with Tag der Toten. Nevertheless, their reception remains anything but universally loved.
  • Doctor Monty. Many players enjoyed his humor, revelations about the lore, and the performance of Malcolm McDowell. However, many disliked his sudden entry into the series, especially given his importance to the series; that also has caused some divisiveness, since many feels like he's too important and detracts from Richtofen and the Primis crew. There also exists a camp of players who disliked that he was brought in partially to provide an in-game explanation for most of the game's mechanics, deeming it unnecessary.
• Best Level Ever: Every player has their favorite map, but there are a few that the community agrees are leagues ahead of the rest:
  • Der Riese remains the most popular World at War map, for the character development, Easter egg song, introduction of teleporters and Pack-A-Punch, and for just being a fun map in general. It even got a remaster in the form of The Giant in Black Ops III.
  • Kino der Toten still gets many players (even ignoring it being on-disc content - or perhaps because it was on-disc content), for being a fun map with cool traps, a teleporter, a kickass Easter egg song, and classic moments of comedy from the original crew. To this day, whether you're playing on Black Ops or Black Ops III, Kino remains a heavily played map. It is, arguably the iconic Zombies map precisely because it was so accessible to many players.
  • Call of the Dead, for being a love-letter to horror fans with veteran horror actors as playable characters, an original Zombies song from Avenged Sevenfold, the triumphant return of the Wunderwaffe DG-2, and freaking George Romero himself as a boss zombie!
  • Mob of the Dead is a very popular map for its deep and complex story, well-written characters, its all-star cast who deliver excellent performances, the map's huge size, the genuinely scary atmosphere, improvements to the building system, its Easter Egg song, the Easter Egg itself, the diverse armory of unique and cool weapons, the return of purchasable traps, and it’s significance in the storyline.
  • Origins, mainly for its scale, storyline, WW1 setting, unique gameplay and the introduction of the Primis crew, the Elemental Staffs, and a fan-favorite boss enemy in the form of the Panzersoldat. Not to mention having one of the most epic Easter Eggs in the series so far, as Primis sets out to free Samantha from Agartha.
  • Der Eisendrache may get some mild disdain for being a second-rate Origins, but it is still seen as a solid map with a unique Medieval castle setting, a powerful set of Wonder Weapons in the form of the Elemental Bows, and a great deal of character development for both Dempsey and Richtofen. And the Easter Egg ends with you blowing up the Moon.
  • Gorod Krovi as well - the ravaged Stalingrad setting, the ties to Norse mythology, the giant fucking dragons, the Gauntlet of Siegfried, the long awaited return of the PPSh, a boss fight that's actually challenging in comparison to the rather easy boss fights from before, the Ray Gun Mark III, Nikolai's character development, it all comes together to form a definite fan-favorite.
  • IX came out of nowhere and stole fans hearts when Black Ops 4 launched - the central coliseum that links to the four temples, each dedicated to their own mythology, the underbelly of the map holding Pack-a-Punch, the Easter Egg being one of the more manageable ones of BO4, the Death of Orion being one of the most stand-out Wonder Weapons we've had - it all coalesces into what is generally considered one of the better Chaos storyline maps.
  • Ancient Evil is the other fan-favorite from Chaos - set in the underground ruins of an ancient Greek city, it carries a lot of atmosphere that captivates the player nicely. It's very similar in structure to Der Eisendrache, but carries a lot of unique qualities, like the boss zombies (which aren't as irritating here as they are in other BO4 maps), the steps of freeing Zeus's birds to reach Pack-a-Punch, and the unique spin on elemental Wonder Weapons in the form of the four gauntlets.
• Broken Base: The ending of Tag der Toten is pretty controversial, to say the least. While there are people who like it for being a tearjerking Grand Finale of the Aether storyline, others hate it for rendering many interesting foreshadows from the previous maps (the Great War concept, the prophecy of Ultimis prevailing over Primis, Dr. Monty's true Apothicon form, etc) totally pointless, banishing everyone barring Samantha and Eddie to the Dark Aether (e.g., killing off) and destroying the Aether multiverse in an anti-climatic way. Even if one liked the ending, it is impossible to not admit it felt like the rug was ripped out from under a fanbase expecting something grander, even with Activision giving them no budget and no time to even make the map being well-known. On the other hand, one can't help but assume that Treyarch simply wanted to finish the Aether storyline and then not bother with it anymore, much less let anyone else use it... except for the fact that the next iteration in Cold War not only continues the story from a different perspective (on top of re-introducing Sam as a central character, now as an adult) but also reintroduces Russian Manglers in Firebase Z, which only throws that further into question.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Any time the player obtains and/or uses a Wonder Weapon, trap, or equipment that lets them cut through zombies like butter is extremely satisfying. Your back's against the wall and you need to get something from the box quickly? Congratulations, you've just gotten something truly wonderful like the Ray Gun Mark II, the Thundergun, or the Apothicon Servant and you are good to go.
  • Taking the steps to activate an Easter Egg song, especially fan-favorites like "115", "Not Ready to Die", or "Where Are We Going" makes for an extremely epic, cathartic gameplay experience as you fight the hordes set to the game's soundtrack.
  • While Maxis taking over the Aether is still really bad, hearing him finally lay Richtofen low and spoiling his fun and games is still quite a sight - or rather, sound - to behold.
  • The final defeat of the Shadow Man at the end of Revelations is great considering all the manipulation and mind games he and his masters had been committing for countless eons, being responsible for destroying so much and ruining our heroes' lives all this time.
  • At the climax of Blood of the Dead, the spirits of Al, Finn, and Sal return to stymie Brutus long enough for Primis to get back to the lab. They and all the other spirits of Alcatraz finally get to pass on to the afterlife in peace once post-Revelations Richtofen defeats Brutus, ending the use of the Alcatraz pocket dimension and its' eternal suffering once and for all.
• Common Knowledge: It has been mistakenly believed that the Springfield from World at War will occasionally fail to one-shot a zombie while the insta-kill power-up is on. Many people use a moment from the TheSmithPlays's video review as a proof, even though the shot fired is shown to have missed due to the gun's misaligned iron sights, yet it was still assumed to be a hit. This does not make the gun any better in the slightest nonetheless.
• Complete Monster:
  • Black Ops 4: The High Priest of Chaos, the Big Bad of the "Chaos" story, plans to use the Prima Materia to control all of humanity and rule the world. Forming The Order by killing countless people before resurrecting and brainwashing them into becoming his followers with the Scepter of Ra, he would also use the Scepter of Ra to make himself immortal. Surviving into 1912, he has The Order pursue Alistair Rhodes, where he has all the people attending Alistair's mansion turned into zombies, creating mass carnage. When a group led by Alistair's daughter, Scarlett, travels to his time in Ancient Rome, he uses a Sentinel Artifact to turn all his slaves into zombies and forces the four to fend off the zombie hoard and complete the Trial of Ra before he attempts to execute them.
  • Vanguard: Kortifex the Deathless is a cruel entity originating from the Dark Aether, who wants to become the Construct's Archon and enslave the free wills of every being. Assassinating anyone who wanted to become the Archon, Kortifex also murdered his own parents, yet erased the memories of his bride and enslaved her as a Sister of Agony because she bore a child who could depose him. His ambitions later fueled his attempt to conquer the Dark Aether and he conducted a litany of atrocities, including the systematic execution of his men for failure and the genocide of an entire clan in the Wilds. Though defeated and imprisoned in his artifact, Kortifex would reemerge as Wolfram Von List's benefactor, raising an army of zombies under the promise that he would create a Thousand Year Reich and cleanse the world of anyone the Nazis deemed impure. Casually throwing away the lives of Die Warheit, Kortifex manipulates the Special Forces into freeing him and becomes the Archon, boasting that he will "thank" everyone by wiping out the universe, including Von List.
• Crazy Is Cool: Ultimis are truly a group of amazing zombie killers... and they're also batshit insane.
  • Dempsey, for one, laments he can't rip off a zombies arm and beat it to death with it. He escaped from a Japanese prison camp by gnawing through the bamboo cage and killing his captors with a medal of honor he... hid in a very particular spot.
  • Nikolai constantly talks about how he is drunk, and has apparently killed his wives before marrying a new one.
    • In Gorod Krovi, how does Nikolai 1.0 get reintroduced? Piloting a mech, while drunk! You can't make this shit up if you tried, considering that the map also introduced Dragons!
  • Takeo is probably the least batshit insane, but still is completely devoted to killing and improving from that, is not uneased by fighting zombies at all, and has no reservations of the possibility of dying to the zombies. His original bio stated he tattooed the insides of his eyelids with the Japanese for "honor".
  • Richtofen hears voices, has tortured many people to death, and verbally, orgasmically revels in bloodshed against the zombies. He also sounds somewhat high-pitched.
    • His insanity actually has a back story, according to radios and film reels on the Moon. Note to self: do NOT poke objects with an obvious alien origin.
  • Arguably, the Primis versions of Tank, Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen may be cooler than their Ultimis counterparts. Being introduced in one of the most amazing ways to open a map, proving that they were very distinguishable from their Ultimis incarnations, and having a level of chemistry that made them feel like a real team certainly helped.
  • Downplayed with Sam, whose insanity is actually very understandable, but Sanity Slippage since Firebase Z didn't make her any less effective as an Operator mowing down hordes upon hordes of zombies with a few quips here and there. Even being Mission Control during the events of Ravenov Implications in Outbreak, she manages to get one over both Kravchenko and The Director by coordinating with Requiem and Ravenov in private to both save the former and launch the Aetherium-laced nuclear warheads into the bottom of the ocean.
• Creator's Pet: An odd example in which this applies to fan favorites as well. During the Black Ops II season, Word of God asked fans to voice what they wanted to be the ultimate fate of the Green Run crew. By that point, the four had been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap and had a following, but the game designer in question retweeted many people expressing a desire to kill off the group and bring back the original cast. While people missed the original characters, nobody was too pleased that the Black Ops II characters and their story arcs were dropped like day-old pizza.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • In general, quite a few of the Pack-a-Punched weapon names range from Refuge in Audacity to shout-outs to this trope and back. On one hand, you have something pretty cool like the Anointed Avenger for the KN-44 in Black Ops III and then you have names like... AK-74fu2 (or AK-74NOFU in Cold War), Royale With Lead, Psychotropic Thunder, and so on.
  • Any time Ultimis!Nikolai mentions killing one of his wives, ranging from using a PPSh-41 or PTRS-41 to do so, to chasing down one of the surviving wives after she escaped his wrath. Less so after Gorod Krovi, however.
  • Dempsey's line after the completion of Richtofen's Grand Scheme in Moon comes off as this considering what the end result of the Easter egg entails.
    Ultimis!Dempsey: Uh, that's it? Seriously? All that work and all we did was blow up the Earth? What the fuck...
  • Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to give Stuhlinger an actual cat wrapped in - what else - gift wrap as opposed to putting them in a box with holes, leading to Stuhlinger to say this as he's getting his weapon Pack-a-Punched in TranZit:
    Stuhlinger: Oh, this is the best present I've ever had. I hope it lasts longer than that birthday cat I got. I shoulda unwrapped him faster. *beat* Sorry, Fluffy.
  • The Tombstone Soda jingle. All of it.
  • With the introduction of vehicles in Outbreak (which are borrowed from Warzone), you now have a means of running zombies over. Yes, you read that right - you can run zombies over in Outbreak. Your character will usually have a good quip or two every time you do so, which makes it all the more hilarious!
• Demonic Spiders: There have been many over the years...
  • The infamous Verruckt runners who appear only in the World at War version of the map. Not only do they spawn early on (about 6 rounds into the game, regardless of whether the power was turned on or not), but they also sprint at outright dangerous speeds, capable of outrunning the player and taking them down with little trouble. Worse, they look exactly same as the other zombies (making singling them out pretty problematic), and, like other enemies, grow tougher with each round. More often than not, they are cited to be one of the key reasons Verruckt is so difficult, other than tight corridors (which make them even more dangerous and hard to evade).
  • The Avogadro from TranZit, Damn You, Muscle Memory! incarnate. As if the Denizens weren't bad enough, you now have a creepy bundle of electrified nerves that can appear anywhere at any time, disable the bus and all Perk-a-Colas in the area, and can't be damaged by gunfire. You have to knife it several times, in a game mode where knife attacks are suicidal past round 5. That, or use an EMP Grenade, seen as one of the most worthless things in Tranzit and Zombies in general.
  • Though some do love the Panzersoldat, others can't help but find them annoying. Every once in a while, the game will sic two of them on you, outfitted with a flamethrower that can easily down you, and either a grappling hook or shock charges, depending on the map - but both are equally infuriating to get hit with, and can quickly lead to you being set ablaze.
    • The Krazny Soldat in Outbreak and Mauer der Toten (the spiritual successor to the Panzer in Cold War) is hardly any better, either. If this is any indication, these tin cans will follow your ass to the ends of the earth non-stop with their flamethrowers and napalm grenades.
  • The Thrashers from Zetsubou No Shima. They take a shitload of ammo to kill, can one-shot you if you forgot to get Jugger-Nog, and give you absolutely nothing upon death - no points, no drop, nothing. And they keep spawning in every single round. Have fun!
  • Nosferatus in Dead of the Night. Remember the Denizens from TranZit? Great. Now imagine if they got more aggressive, spawned in by the fucking dozen, and their hits not only causing some serious Interface Screw with the screen (in case slowing you down wasn't enough), but they'll also stop you from regenerating!
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Misty, for being a tough, kickass female character and the closest Tank has to a Distaff Counterpart. Her status as a Ms. Fanservice (on top of being the least annoying of the Victis crew) helps a lot too.
  • T.E.D.D., the robotic bus driver in TranZit, who is genuinely hilarious with his unflappably cheerful demeanor as he drives you around... which can quickly turn into profane, abrasive rants at you if you piss him off.
  • The Call of the Dead celebrities. No points for guessing why.
  • Weasel, for being voiced by Joe Pantoliano, and commanding the zombies to help him kill the other three mobsters at the climax of Mob of the Dead's Easter Egg.
  • Raptor-1, simply for being as reliable as Pequod and for always coming in clutch after every extraction. Players are still in mourning after his canon death at the end of Outbreak's first Easter egg. That is, until Mauer der Toten reveals that he's alive and well... for now.
  • The Panzer Soldats quickly became fan-favorite bosses due to their imposing design, challenging tactics, and the difficulty it takes to bring them down. It's no surprise that they show up a lot in custom maps, and returned for both Der Eisendrache and Revelations.
  • Brutus is just as popular as the Panzers, being an imposing boss with a unique gimmick and a thoroughly badass design, but still being easy and fair to dispose of. He also shows up in a lot of custom maps, and Blood of the Dead gave him an actual backstory and some true standout moments.
  • You can't talk about Call of Duty: Zombies perks without even once mentioning Juggernog. This perk is so iconic that not only has it become a pop culture icon (with it alongside the original four perks - Quick Revive, Double Tap, and Speed Cola - receiving tons of official and unofficial merchandise) and has a very catchy jingle, but its removal in Black Ops IV was not very well-received to put it as lightly as possible. It made its glorious return in Cold War, with Woods - another fellow Ensemble Dark Horse in the Call of Duty series at large - alongside it.
  • PhD Flopper is another fan-favorite perk from the days of the Black Ops season, often heavily used on Ascension and Call of the Dead to great effect. It was all but removed from Black Ops II, however, only getting teased in Die Rise and Mob of the Dead, and is only obtainable via the Perma-Perk system in Buried and the Wunderfizz machine in Origins. Thanks to the transition from dolphin-diving to sliding, it never made a proper return until Black Ops IV introduced its replacement PhD Slider, which still isn't as popular as the original. Its long, convoluted history has also helped endear it to fans, and its leaked Dark Aether jingle for a possible return in Cold War's DLC was met with some fanfare.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Ultimis Richtofen is so hilarious and insane, you’re kinda rooting for him when he sets out to take over the zombies.
  • Boss enemies Avogadro, Brutus, and the Panzer Soldats are all well-regarded for at least looking cool and being challenging enemies to fight.
  • The Shadow Man is a deliciously evil villain with a chilling performance from Robert Picardo, who is powerful enough to tear holes in the fabric of space and time at his most powerful.
• Fan Nickname: Before Black Ops III would give them proper group names, the various groups of player characters were given nicknames by the community (with the exception of the Shadows of Evil cast), used in Wikis and the like;
  • Original Characters or "O4" - Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen, Original Timeline. Officially called Ultimis.
  • Original Characters (Young) or 2.0 characters (which was also used in some official media) - The rebooted versions of the original four who debuted in Origins. Officially called Primis.
  • Green Run Group / TranZit Crew - Misty, Russman, Marlton and Stuhlinger from TranZit to Buried. Officially called Victis.
  • Marines - The four nondistinct Marines from Nacht Der Untoten and Verruckt.
  • Politicians - Kennedy, McNamara, Castro and Nixon from Five.
  • Celebrities - Sarah Michelle Geller, Robert Englund, Michael Rooker and Danny Trejo from Call of the Dead.
  • Mobsters or "Mob 4" - Sal, Billy, Finn and Weasel from Mob of the Dead.
  • Dempsey's original pronunciation of the Wunderwaffe as "Wunderwaffle" (like the breakfast food) has stuck with many players who genuinely use it to refer to the weapon.
  • "Baby Gun" for the 31-79 JGB215 from Shangri-La.
  • Before he was properly named by the timeline, Arthur had too many fan nicknames to list, but the most dominant and widespread appears to be "Leeroy", named after his Leeroy Jenkins tendencies. Many players still call him Leeroy even after the timeline's release.
  • "Meatballs" for the Insanity Elementals from Shadows of Evil and Dead Ops Arcade. Even Treyarch themselves waste no time in referring to them as such for their special rounds in the aforementioned game mode.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Some people flat out refuse to acknowledge everything that happened at the end of Tag der Toten (or everything Aether-related after Revelations, really). The reasons for that include, but are not limited to, the Happy Ending Override of the first four games, Primis Richtofen's slow and meaningless death at the end of Blood of the Dead and Victis, Ultimis and Primis being all killed off and banished to Dark Aether at the end of Tag der Toten, rendering all they have ever done on the previous maps (and games) nothing but a near complete waste of time. Given how the series basically ends how the Shadow Man wanted, with everything cast into darkness (or more specifically the Dark Aether), some fans have elected to take the events of this season as a non-canonical The Bad Guy Wins alternate ending, much like how the Richtofen ending of Buried later was declared the non-canon ending of the series.
  • Following the Cold War storyline ending, some people prefer to stick with the ending of Tag der Toten as true Zombies ending due to Forsaken concluding the whole storyline on a depressing note: Samantha is forced to sacrifice herself to save the world, yet the protagonists end up arrested by military police anyway. In addition, Eddie ends up pulling a sudden Face–Heel Turn and gets off scot-free with everything he's done.
• First Installment Wins: World at War and Black Ops are the seasons of Zombies that are still by far the most acclaimed and remembered. In a single-game example, Kino der Toten is by far the most iconic map of the series and is the most-remembered map from Black Ops.
• Flanderization: The Ultimis crew started out as relatively grounded, realistic characters in World At War’s Shi No Numa. Dempsey was a hard-ass marine with a slight tendency to Lean On The Fourth Wall, Nikolai was already a drunk Russian, but was still able to talk about things other than Vodka, Takeo was the Only Sane Man and a deadly serious warrior who’s fanaticism for the emperor was played completely straight, and Richthofen was a mad scientist who nonetheless showed occasional moments of something approaching sanity. Over time, the signature traits of each character became so exaggerated that by the time of the later Black Ops maps, Dempsey had completely lost his serious side and become a comedian who treated the world as if there were No Fourth Wall, practically everything Nikolai said had something to do with Vodka, Takeo had become a total self-parody, often spouting off fortune cookie-like wisdom and cracking jokes that would have seemed completely out of character for him before, and Richtofen had gone completely off the deep end in terms of his sanity. To be fair, Nikolai and Richtofen arguably didn’t change very much, but there’s no doubt that Takeo and Dempsey were completely different characters than they had been when they were first introduced.
• Fountain of Memes: Ultimis as a whole. Adding on to what's stated above in First Installment Wins, another one of the main reasons why Kino is fondly remembered is because of some of the side-splittingly hilarious commentary from them. Whether it's Richtofen's sadomasochism or Dempsey's tendency to break the fourth wall, you'll be quoting these guys quite a lot. Long after their deaths in Tag der Toten.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Loads of them in "Five", mostly in the form of Historical In-Joke dialogue.
  • Call of the Dead counts as well, with allusion after allusion after allusion to roles the actors have played.
  • One could probably count some of Marlton's quotes in TranZit; he often rattles off quite accurate real-life facts about the guns he picks up. It's such a shame he hates half of them. And even he's wrong sometimes! He identifies that MTAR as an X95L. This is slightly incorrect: the MTAR in-game is actually just a normal X95. The L variant has a two-step rail the "MTAR" lacks.
  • The names of certain Pack-A-Punched weapons can fall into this.
    • Some Pack-A-Punched guns have names written in Leet Lingo. For example, the 1911 in World at War gets renamed to... C-3000 b1at-ch35. Yeah, wrap your head around that one.
    • In Black Ops I, Pack-A-Punching a single CZ-75 turns it into "Calamity". Pretty generic... However weapons that become dual-wielded when Pack-a-Punched tend to follow a "(NAME) and (NAME)'' convention, which again are also cheeky references. PM-63? Tokyo & Rose. HS-10? Typhoid & Mary. Dual CZ-75s? Calamity & Jane.
    • Also from 'Black Ops I, Pack-A-Punching the Commando assault rifle turns it into the Predator, both Arnold Schwarzenegger action flicks.
    • Pack-A-Punching the Uzi in Black Ops II will give it the name "Uncle Gal", a reference to Uziel Gal, the man who originally designed the weapon.
    • The MAC-10 in Cold War is called the "Royale With Lead"... anyone who's ever seen Pulp Fiction will get the reference almost immediately.^ExplanationIt's a play on "Royale With Cheese", which Vincent discusses with Jules in the beginning of the movie. Vincent meets his end later when Butch guns him down with a MAC-10.
    • Then there's the Gallo 12 (the SPAS-12 from previous games, really), which becomes the H-ngm-n.^*"Hangman" with spaces in the name in reference to the game.
• Goddamned Bats: Some of these cases are putting the "Goddamned" part very lightly.
  • The Hellhounds. Most servers and custom maps will disable them because of just how hated they are - under-equipped players at round five or so can easily die when the round comes up. They're worse in Black Ops 4 spawning in higher numbers to the point of Zerg Rush at times. In Cold War, they aren't nearly as bad since they're only seen in Firebase Z and Outbreak (being replaced by the Plaguehounds in Die Maschine instead) and to top it off, in both of their appearances in Cold War, you have plenty of space to put as much distance between you and the Hellhounds as much as possible.
  • The zombies themselves become this at higher rounds due to them getting more health per round.
  • Nova Crawlers. Not a problem in Kino (where the stage is a great area to hold them off due to being a wide-open spot) and Moon (where the player can protect themselves from gas with an oxygen mask), but Level 3 of the Pentagon in Five is a death trap, thanks to these guys. Their spiritual successor, the Plaguehounds, are also as manageable in Die Maschine and Outbreak as they are in Kino, but even then they can still be just as much of a pain in the ass as the above-mentioned Hellhounds.
    • Special mention goes to the Plaguehounds in Onslaught in particular. Good luck contending with upwards of five to six of these little mutts on your ass in maps like Raid or Express. Being the spiritual successor to the Nova Crawlers of Kino also means that you'll be seeing a lot of green as a result, too.
  • Space Monkeys that are able to throw your grenades back at you in Ascension. This is made worse if you like to cook your grenades before throwing them. Oh, and the round they spawn on forces you to defend the Perk-A-Cola machines or you lose the first perk you bought or the other perks that your fellows probably bought first (ie. Juggernog).
  • And zombie monkeys return in Shangri-La. This time stealing power-ups and then changes the power-up randomly.
  • Denizens - one of the community's biggest problems with TranZit. Did you take too long to get the power on, causing you to miss the bus to the Town? Good luck walking through the fog with these goblins latching onto you every five seconds (plus the five seconds and up to four knife swings it takes to remove them). They also give no points if you shoot them. To say nothing of their irritating high-pitched screams while they're latched onto you, either.
  • The ghost women from Buried, on account of how if they attack you, they can steal not only your points, but your ammo as well, making navigating the ghost house and maze to get to the Pack-a-Punch machine an absolute nightmare. But that's probably what you deserve for abusing the bank.
  • The parasites from Shadows of Evil and Revelations. These little gits were openly described by Jason Blundell as "popcorn enemies", meaning their sole purpose is to distract you from the zombies and/or Margwas that are more likely to kill you. And it works. Often.
  • The spiders in Zetsubou No Shima have such a low hitbox you simply can't knife them while standing - attempting will most likely result in a hilariously inaccurate miss - but the collision hitbox is high enough that you can't jump over them from the same height, and they deal the same amount of damage as normal zombies. They also can take a lot of bullet damage somehow. Getting downed by them usually results in screaming and a probably broken controller - and they're supposed to be easier to deal with than zombies!
  • While not as bad as other examples on this list, Megatons in Die Maschine can be a bitch to fight. They're slow, admittedly, but they are absurdly spongy (especially considering the awful tier system makes most weapons unable to deal enough damage), have annoying projectiles (long-range, Mangler-accurate, hurt like hell, and deal damage over time in the area they land), an armour-shattering melee attack and a second form that literally doubles the problem! And if they weren't bad enough, say hello to the Megaton Overlord (or Mayuk), who is faster, spongier, and worse to deal with. Thankfully the latter only spawns in the Dark Aether, and after a certain point in the Easter Egg.
  • The Tempests in Outbreak, which are a slightly more manageable Avogadro from TranZit and Alpha Omega, but are still annoying because of their electric blasts that, as you'd expect, shock you and stop any vehicle you're driving dead in its tracks. Oh, and better not get too close unless you want to put up with their incessant Teleport Spam, which they will abuse with extreme prejudice to take potshots at you from as far away as possible.
  • Normally, Mimics in Firebase Z and Outbreak are pretty reasonable and, if anything, fairly easy to deal with compared to any of the above examples. So why are they on this list? Besides the fact that they can look like anything and catch you with your pants down if you're not careful, in the newly added Main Quest for Outbreak, you will be facing several of these beasts all at once. This footage speaks for itself.
• Good Bad Bugs: The phenomenon of "Insta-Kill Rounds" in the games from World at War to Black Ops II, where due to the method of calculating zombie health they will suddenly become extremely weak on Round 163, and for a predictable sequence of rounds after that. For players doing high round challenges, this unintentional Breather Level is very welcome, on top of allowing players to reach higher rounds than otherwise would be possible.
• Genre Turning Point: For the series itself. After a highly enthusiastic reception to the deeper plot, cast, and mechanics of Mob of the Dead, every single map has followed suit and the story itself has gotten more praise since it's gotten more coherent presentation.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Kino der Toten, the first playable map of Black Ops, is when the series officially became the worldwide phenomenon it is today.
  • The Black Ops II season had a rough time getting off of the ground largely due to its initial reception as a Replacement Scrappy. Mob of the Dead, however, was seen as a major turning point for the season and the series in general as the maps become much more complex, deep, and have much more fleshed out characters and a far better received soundtrack (with Malukah becoming a fan-favorite singer).
  • Ancient Evil in Black Ops IV is far and away the most popular of the wholly original maps released in the game's lifetime, and finally allowed the Chaos crew and story to properly gain its' own following, even if it's not quite as beloved as the original Aether setting.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The official timeline more or less confirmed that the Call of the Dead cast and crew all perished. The timeline was released mere months before the real George Romero's death in July 2017.
  • Takeo's death in Tag der Toten (both Primis and Ultimis versions) is this with the news that Tom Kane suffered a stroke in December 2020 that ultimately ended his voice acting career... meaning that unless Takeo (through some shape or form) gets the Darrin treatment, he's definitely gone for good.
  • One of the funniest Running Gags of the series has been Nikolai complaining about all of his ex-wives. Gorod Krovi reveals that he only ever had one wife, and became a drunk so that he could forget the pain of losing her in an air raid.
  • Richard Nixon's line in the opening cutscene of Five about someone breaking into Pentagon and the subsequent fight with zombies becomes a bit harsher after the United States Capitol attack in 2021, incited by a president, no less.
• He's Just Hiding: There are people who believe that Gideon Jones survived the events of Dead of the Night, mostly due to his wound (being slashed across the torso) being not as severe as Christina getting decapitated, Warwick being stabbed or Godfrey getting shot. That, if the fire didn't get him for good.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of Richtofen's lines when picking up the Thundergun in Ascension is this with the introduction of both the Jet Gun in TranZit and the much-improved D.I.E. Shockwave in Die Maschine -
    Richtofen: If I had designed this it would have sucked, and not blown. Ohoho!
  • So, what does Danny Trejo do after fighting off the zombified George Romero? He becomes a drug kingpin named...Romero.
  • Michael Rooker was known for playing Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead at the time of the release of Call of the Dead. During the map's opening cinematic, Rooker was criticized by his director for continuously missing when he tried to strike a zombie actor. A few years later, Merle returned to The Walking Dead, and ultimately when he failed to shoot The Governor, it got him killed!
  • Finn's reactions to the Cerberus heads in Mob of the Dead considering Michael Madsen voiced the wolf Maugrim in The Chronicles of Narnia.
  • The Aether Story Arc wrapping up in 2019 considering quite a few other major franchise story arcs were wrapping up that same year, such as Game of Thrones, the Xehanort Saga of Kingdom Hearts, the X-Men Film Series, The Walking Dead comic, the Skywalker Saga, and the Infinity Saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ironically, just like a few of those wrap-ups, the conclusion remains incredibly divisive to this day.
  • Die Rise has this gem from Russman at the start of the Hellhound rounds:
    Russman: Aw, shit! Here we go again!
  • The extradimension where the zombies come from (long story short) is called "Dark Aether". Genshin Impact has, depending on the choice, an extradimensional threat called the "Abyss Order" led by Aether, the main character's brother, if the game is played as female.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • As beloved as it is, one of the chief complaints aimed at Der Eisendrache by detractors is the claim that it’s basically Origins in a castle setting.
  • The main premise of Revelations is that it's a mash-up of much of the Aether maps released to that point, but it's still often criticized for not having much in the way of innovation. The final boss fight of Revelations is criticized in particular; the fight with the Shadow Man is essentially a reskinned version of the same boss fight from Shadows of Evil. It was especially derided at release since at the time it appeared to be the true ending of the series.
  • All four of the Aether maps released for Black Ops 4 - Blood of the Dead, Classified, Alpha Omega and Tag der Toten - have been remixed versions of maps from Black Ops and Black Ops II - Mob of the Dead, "Five", Nuketown and Call of the Dead, respectively. Many fans lament the fact that the last wholly original map was Gorod Krovi (which released in 2016), as Revelations was also mainly a mash-up of old maps as well, and wish the Aether storyline could have ended with a completely new map that didn't tie itself down to the foundations of an old favorite. Most content in the maps is also just remade older content, such as Elemental Ray Gun Mark 2.0's, the Tundra Gun, and the Magmagat, with little to nothing in the way of innovation.
  • Some fans take issue with the game mode's very small pool of actors even considering the occasional celebrity guest stars. While the core cast of Steve Blum, Nolan North, Fred Tatasciore, and Tom Kane are all fantastic actors who always deliver top-notch performances, it can take you out of it as you realize just how many additional characters they voice alongside their signature ones.^note Blum voices Dempsey, Groph, Yuri, and Brock; Tatasciore voices Nikolai, Maxis, Brock, Pablo Marinus, and George Barkley; Kane voices Takeo, the Warden's human form, Schuster, Jebediah Brown, and Pernell; and North voices Richtofen, Gersh, and Brutus
• It Was His Sled: Ultimis Richtofen takes control of the zombies at the end of Moon, and Maxis responds by blowing up the Earth, then destroying it outright. It's the defining Wham Episode of the series and these events are so crucial to the series afterwards that you can't not know it while playing maps following Moon.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Many people buy the Treyarch-produced Call of Duty games just to play this game mode.
  • Many a player has found themselves playing a map they hate just to use a certain Wonder Weapon or listen to a certain Easter egg song (for example, Zetsubou No Shima was not a beloved map, but "Dead Flowers" by Malukah was fairly well acclaimed).
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Revive me I have Ray Gun" or some variation of it, is easily one of the most iconic Call of Duty memes. ^note It refers to how players with Ray Guns who were downed often called for help over mics, hoping that their ownership of the Ray Gun would provide adequate motivation for other players to revive them. Ascended in Black Ops 4; one of Takeo's quotes in Classified has him say the phrase almost word-for-word.
  • "I AM that duck!" ^note A Funny Moment from Revelations, in which Monty compares his struggle with the Shadowman to a duck swimming across a lake
  • "Ain't that swell?" ^note Sal says this in the opening cinematic of Mob of the Dead to Stanley Ferguson when he tells him his son is almost six years old now. Sal's very clear apathy about Ferguson's family made it a golden example of sarcasm, and it became a meme leading up to the release of Blood of the Dead (even getting used by Treyarch in a post on the Zombies reddit). It also gets said by Dempsey in the outro cutscene for Blood itself.
  • Last-Gen Richtofen^note The last-gen ports of Black Ops III were, to put it lightly, trainwrecks. Unfinished and thoroughly ugly, the rendering on characters was downright awful, and with Richtofen in Shadows of Evil 's outro cutscene looking especially wrong and off. His scrunchy face became a meme, with many asking for him to be an actual character in and of himself. He...uh, ascended with Classified, getting his own jumpscare in Groom Lake.
  • REST IN PIECES, DOWN FOR THE COUNT^note The rather hilarious jingle of Tombstone Soda, originally one of the worst perks in Zombies history until being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in Cold War as of Firebase Z, starts with this in the most jaunty and hilariously Southern manner imaginable. Just listen to it for yourself here, now with a dank remix!
• More Popular Spin-Off: What started out as just an extra mode became the real focus of the downloadable content of World at War.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Most, if not all of Kevin Sherwood's Easter egg songs. Check them out on the Awesome Music page.
  • Every time you pick up a power-up tends to be this. Especially when Sam says it.
    MAX AMMO!
    CARPENTER!
    DOUBLE POINTS!
    INSTA-KILL!
    KA-BOOM!
    FIRE SALE!
    BONFIRE SALE!
    BONUS POINTS!
    DEATH MACHINE!
  • The firing sound of virtually any Pack-a-Punched weapon (even some of the weaker ones). Especially in World at War and Black Ops.
  • Related to the above, the firing sound of most, if not all of the Wonder Weapons. Particularly the Ray Gun, Thundergun, Ray Gun Mark II, and RAI-K84, to name a few.
  • Scoring a headshot in Black Ops III is incredibly satisfying thanks to the distinctive audio cue that plays when you do so.

N-Z

• Narm:
  • The infamous last-gen version of Black Ops III had the entire cutscenes be played out with severe graphic problems, rendering the characters ugly and beyond much recognition. In particular, the Richtofen who appeared at the end of the Shadows of Evil cutscene was looking so off-key he had reached memetic potential to the point of being referenced in one Classified easter egg.
  • Some of Ultimis Takeo's dialogue and attempts at jokes were painfully unfunny and just plain awkward, though this evened out when he became The Comically Serious by Ascension.
  • Malcolm McDowell gives a pretty good performance as Doctor Monty, but some of his last lines in Revelations ("what to do, what to do") are pretty weak.
  • The Dead of the Night intro cinematic was poorly received due to stilted animation, long, wandering pans over the party guests, and generally coming off as your typical "peaceful scene eventually gets overrun by zombie outbreak" set-up the series has employed numerous times.
  • The Aether story's cinematics are entirely in the comic-style format, which while not without their moments are generally agreed to not have nearly the impact that the fully rendered 3D cutscenes had.
  • Seeing as we don't quite have the amount of character with Cold War's Operators that we got from the Aether characters (or even the Chaos characters, for that matter), whenever there's a cutscenes that advances the plot of Zombies (the Easter Egg cutscenes of Firebase Z and Outbreak in particular), your character(s) - including the likes of Woods and Adler - will simply stay quiet and say nothing like your average GTA Online protagonist. All the more jarring since amongst those operators, Sam herself happens to be one of them.
• Narm Charm: The line "What in Lucifer's ballsack was that?" from Dead of the Night. It's corny as hell, but it's coming from Kiefer Sutherland being deliberately cheesy and funny... and is generally regarded as the highlight of a lackluster intro cutscene.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Richtofen now controls the zombies? Terrifying! Wait, he's now in the body of a little girl? Hilarious!
  • If you're especially afraid of the dark, the Subway in Mauer der Toten is sure to scare the living shit out of you. However, Kravchenko of all people provides some levity after the first appearance of the train while later on during the Easter egg, Klaus actually manages to stop it.
    Kravchenko: I hope you're smart enough to avoid being hit by a train.
• Only the Creator Does It Right:
  • Reactions to Advanced Warfare's Exo Zombies mode can be summed up as "it's Zombies alright, but nowhere near as good as Treyarch Zombies".
  • Happened with Infinite Warfare and Call of Duty: WWII's zombie modes as well, though the reception was a bit more positive overall (especially for WWII).
  • By Vanguard, this reached its logical conclusion: the campaign and regular multiplayer were handled by a combination of Sledgehammer and Raven Software, while its Zombies mode was handed off to Treyarch. Although this ended up becoming a subversion since, because it was relatively late into Vanguard's development when they gave up and had Treyarch handle it, its Zombies mode is considered a huge letdown by a large portion of the fanbase due to many unnecessary changes applied to the gameplay and plot alike.
• Player Punch: Aside from the whole killing the original characters thing, there's another in Gorod Krovi. Remember Gersh, who you freed from the black hole he was trapped in in Ascension? He remembers you, and pleads for mercy and asks why you're shooting him to lead him to S.O.P.H.I.A who then tortures him (presumably to death) as part of the Easter Egg.
• Replacement Scrappy: The changes to the game in Black Ops II, namely the new cast, new Easter Egg song performers, and mechanics, had a hard time winning people over at first. Notably, this didn't happen with the Chaos crew, though this was likely because it was made clear they weren't replacing the old crews, both Ultimis and Primis being playable in their own on-disc maps, and being better written and designed from the start.
  • The "characters" used in Cold War. As all of Cold War's modes are interconnected barring the Campaign, Zombies mode lacks distinct player characters; instead, they just use the Multiplayer operators. On the one hand, you can pick your favourite, new characters will come with more Seasons and you can play as Woods in Zombies, but outside of him, Sam (who is now playable as of Season 2), and maybe Adler, these characters are distinct nobodies with zero personality. They don't joke around, they barely talk ^note and when they do it's generic, obviously reusable stuff like "undead enemy down" or "grabbing a Wonder Weapon" - not mentioning the Ray Gun or the D.I.E by name, just "Wonder Weapon". And they don't say anything at all when drinking Perk-a-Colas... not even Sam, the Queen of Zombies herself! and overall just sort of sleepwalk through their line deliveries. Considering some are still sore about losing the incredibly charismatic Primis, Ultimis, Chaos, and even Victis in Black Ops 4, to say this is a weak replacement is the understatement of the century.
• That One Boss: George A. Romero, though a beloved figure outside of the games, is usually cited as the worst feature of Call of the Dead, since his endless pursuit of the players ruins most if not all attempts at training and camping. The player also has to avoid shooting him lest he chase after them in a rage, and you have to lead him all the way back to the water to calm him down. It's jokingly said that him not returning for Tag Der Toten (for obvious reasons) was one of the things that improves the map compared to the map it's remade from.
• The Scrappy:
  • Out of the Original Characters, Takeo was NOT loved at the time of his introduction, probably because none of his lines were Played for Laughs like the others. Lampshaded by Dempsey in Ascension:
    Dempsey: People say Tak is boring, and maybe he is, but you need that one guy to make the others look cool.
  • Thrashers are hated for being lethally aggravating (being capable of killing the player in 1 hit without the Juggernog). They can swallow zombies to restore their health, spawn every round (sometimes several monsters as ones) and give you nothing when you kill them — not even goddamn points!
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Max Ammo pickups in most games simply refill your reserve ammo and do nothing for your current magazine, which just makes things clunky under the best of circumstances (since you need to coordinate with everyone to have all their guns reloaded to make the most of the pickup) and noticeably hindering its usefulness under the worst (say, if you don't have any ammo left for one gun). It wasn't until Black Ops 4 that the devs finally cottoned on and set it so the pickup refills your magazines as well, which, tellingly, every single mod for Black Ops III immediately backported to that game.
  • The main thing that makes Nuketown Zombies so notorious is that the Perk-a-Cola machines (and Pack-a-Punch) always drop one at a time within intervals of every one hundred zombies killed. Essentially, you may get the much-needed Juggernog either about the fifth wave... or about the fifteenth, nevermind the fact that not everyone has the skill to make it this far. The whole gameplay on Nuketown Zombies therefore becomes a Luck-Based Mission where your odds at survival heavily depend on RNG.
  • The Easter Eggs are considered this by some, they often have big gameplay rewards but require such asinine steps that often they're borderline impossible to solve on your own and at worst become extremely tedious even if you know what you're doing (sometimes outright requiring the player to wait for specific special rounds/enemy spawns in order to proceed) and with some of the later games like Cold War, the maps expect you to have either done them or watched the egg online in order to understand what's going on.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: There is, of course, a community of players that aim to reach as high of a round as possible. This is made more interesting thanks to the existence of the "Reset", a failsafe where the game will throw you into a loading screen and restart the level from scratch after the game's entity accumulator reaches its limit, which on many Zombies maps is at around 75 hours of continuous play. This turns the challenge into a race to complete as many rounds as possible before you hit the Reset.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Black Ops: Cold War is far and away the most accessible that Zombies has ever been. Not factoring in the Anti-Frustration Features mentioned on the main page, the fact that - as of Season 3 - much of the map design is significantly much more open and sparse (Die Maschine being a prime example, as the spawn area is one of the best training spots in that map) than in previous games, the introduction of scorestreaks borrowed from Multiplayer (such as the Death Machine and Chopper Gunner), the cross-progression with both Multiplayer and Warzone, and the reworked Perk-a-Cola system... the only real downside is the slow stream of content for much of the game's lifespan. And then there's Outbreak, which takes the open spaces of the two round-based maps up to eleven... as well as a pretty major Broken Base.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike:
  • Black Ops II 's zombie mode is a few orders of magnitude harder than the one in the original Black Ops, especially on Solo. Zombies get stronger and faster much earlier on, and the smaller levels and narrower corridors make it much more difficult to form zombie trains. Black Ops 's zombie mode was already more difficult than World at War 's, as each weapon had been nerfed, and machine guns were less viable.
  • Played straight with Black Ops III. The zombies run faster and are able to attack MUCH faster than in previous games - to the point that being trapped is basically a death sentence, and one running zombie is a HUGE threat. To not make it downright impossible, players can now take three hits without Juggernog. Not that it helps...
• Signature Scene:
  • Black Ops: The destruction of the Earth at your hands at the end of Moon is not just the moment when the series officially shifted to a more serious tone, but it’s a strong contender for the signature scene of the entire series.
  • Black Ops II: As the story is split amongst three settings (Mob of the Dead, Victis, and Primis), there is one for each setting: The Reveal in Mob of the Dead, the canonical Downer Ending of Buried, and the intro cutscene of Origins.
  • Black Ops III: The death of each of the Ultimis characters, but particularly that of Ultimis Dempsey.
  • Black Ops 4: The Downer Ending of Ancient Evil and the death of Primis Richtofen in Blood of the Dead, followed by the entire multiverse being erased along with everyone sans Samantha and Eddie going down with it for the respective Chaos and Aether storylines.
  • Cold War: Samantha's Heroic Sacrifice and Eddie Richtofen being revealed as the CIA director in Forsaken.
• Signature Song:
  • Each map's Easter Egg song serves as this for the map, with the notable exception of Moon. "Coming Home" wasn't well-received, and the extra song, "Nightmare" by Avenged Sevenfold, became far more popular.
  • "Damned" (and its remixes) is the main theme song of the series, though "Beauty of Annihilation" serves as this for the World at War season and perhaps the entire series as a whole. "Samantha's Lullaby" also begins to pop up infrequently after Moon.
  • "115" for the Black Ops season.
  • "Always Running" or "Archangel" for the Black Ops II season.
  • "The Gift" for the Black Ops III season.
  • For the Black Ops 4 season, it's either "Mystery" (for Chaos) or "I Am The Well" (for Aether), mainly because "A Light from the Shore" has no lyrics.
• Squick:
  • Invoked in Revelations... at the start of every game, an Apothicon swallows the Pack-a-Punch machine and you have to activate the Corruption Engines around the map to power up the Tesla Death Ray to trap the Apothicon to get access to Pack-a-Punch. What follows is teeth, guts, stomach acids, and all the usual stuff you can imagine being on the inside of a cosmic, deity-like creature.
  • Gouging out Kuhlklay's eye in Firebase Z to build the RAI K-84 (assuming you don't get it from the Mystery Box first). You're given a front-row seat at your Operator pulling the eye out with a knife in its entirety and a very... "loving" closeup of the dismembered eye itself. Better hope you're not squeamish.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: After the poorly received TranZit and Die Rise and the forgettable Nuketown Zombies, Mob of the Dead became an overnight sensation and is generally regarded as one of if not the best map of the entire series. This also came into play with Buried, since it was the third part of the Victis trilogy following TranZit and Die Rise, and is generally well-regarded for its improved mechanics and set-up.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Damned" has been noted to sound similar to the Halloween theme, especially the original and Black Ops III arrangements.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • As noted elsewhere, the new cast, mechanics, and musician was hard to swallow for the fandom at first when Black Ops II launched.
  • In The Giant in Black Ops III, the Wunderwaffe has gotten this treatment, having become slower and thus less reliable. Fortunately, this was fixed in an update that came out not long afterwards.
  • The overhauled mechanics of Black Ops IV have proven divisive, particularly the removal of classic perks like Jugger-Nog and Speed Cola.
  • Speaking of Black Ops IV, Blood of the Dead was the single most hyped map of all - a remixed version of Best Level Ever contender Mob of the Dead that serves as the single biggest Wham Episode of the Aether storyline. Unfortunately, compared to Mob, Blood fell short in quite a lot of ways - many signature elements of Mob had been either scrapped (the famous plane escape to the Golden Gate Bridge is replaced by having to charge a teleporting Pack-a-Punch machine through the Spectral Shield) or watered down significantly (the Hell's Retriever's inclusion feels unnecessary with certain custom tactical equipment that the players can spawn with). Also, while there are new areas and mechanics present, most of these exist simply to serve their purpose in the Easter Egg, which itself has some very difficult steps to do even with a fully coordinated team. With all this into consideration, Blood is viewed sligtly less favorably than its predecessor.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • In Black Ops IV Dr. Monty is revealed to be an evil and egoistic jerk who is willing to do anything to resume the cycle. His Apothicon form is briefly seen when he kills Dr. Maxis at the end of Alpha Omega, and it managed to impress many players, who were hoping to fight him in the final battle. Unfortunately, at the end of Tag der Toten he is banished to Dark Aether with the rest of the multiverse, and thus an excellent opportunity of fighting him as a True Final Boss of the whole franchise gets thrown out of the window.
  • Speaking of Black Ops IV, we have the Dead of Night cast. Its main characters are as funny and cool as any other protagonists of Zombies and are voiced by All-Star Cast. There could be many interesting plots and possibilities for these characters, and yet at the very end one of them turns and kills the other three in a cutscene while controlled by the Order, before dying himself at the hands of Scarlet.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Expectations for Voyage of Despair were high, especially with it being the opening act for a new storyline with a new cast of characters, and with a unique setting - showcasing an alternate scenario where a zombie outbreak is responsible for the sinking of the Titanic. Unfortunately, while the map is set on the Titanic as advertised, it doesn't take advantage of the idea in full, with the Easter Egg focusing on Scarlett Rhodes trying to find her missing father, rather than perhaps trying to prevent the Titanic from sinking.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • Ever since Black Ops II, the maps have slowly been getting more and more serious and the storyline becomes more and more depressing, with several Downer Endings (like Victis being screwed over for all their troubles and the bleak fates of the mobsters). Black Ops III, though still dreary and often quite sad, did end with a Bittersweet Ending for our characters. Black Ops 4, however, is unapolagetically dark, with a general feeling of hopelessness and misery present in every single on-disc map, with Blood being far and away the most depressing map in current Zombies history. It all culminates in an astonishingly, horrifically depressing Downer Ending for the Aether Story in which Nikolai destroys the multiverse, poisons Ultimis and Primis, and Victis gets screwed once again.
  • The Chaos Story fares little better as well, getting progressively more and more bleak with every map. Starting with IX, where the main crew nearly gets executed by the High Priest. In Dead of the Night a whole new cast of interesting characters get brutally killed after successfully stopping the zombie outbreak in Alistair's manor, though it does serve as a prequel to Voyage of Despair. But Ancient Evil has the epitome of a Downer Ending: Bruno kills and then resurrects Shaw, converting him into an agent of the Order. Then Medusa mindwipes Scarlett and absorbs her knowledge of technology before deciding to take over the world. Alistair? He and his kidnappers have already been petrified by Medusa. And while Diego is the only one left standing, he chooses to retreat with unconscious Scarlett in tow, completely powerless to do anything to stop the new threat. Only the Author Can Save Them Now... Or, rather, could, had the focus not shifted once again to the Aether story, even if a continuity-rebooted one.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The Arc Welding of Black Ops III brought back numerous minor characters from the lore that many players were not expecting to see or hear from again, many of whom were either only mentioned in letters or audio logs. Chief examples included Sophia, Peter McCain, Gersh, and Groph. Black Ops IV followed in this trend by bringing back Dr. Schuster for Classified, when the character had been absent from the series for the last seven years (and was also absent from Der Eisendrache when his cohort Groph starred in that map).
  • In the form of an unexpected singer, rather than getting Elena, Malukah, or Clark for the Easter egg song to Firebase Z, we get Julie Nathanson, Samantha's voice actress. While Black Ops 4 had Kevin collaborate with Teemu Mantysaari for Tag Der Toten, this is the first time in a while that we've heard a new singer for the Easter egg song entirely.
  • Thanks in small part to the 80's Action Heroes event in Cold War and Warzone, there's John Rambo and John McClane, of (what else?) Rambo and Die Hard fame.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Monty is made out to be one of the true main villains of the series during the final season of the Aether story due to knowingly perpetuating the cycle since doing otherwise would mean his own death and loss of power. However, the game glosses over the fact that the alternative to Monty’s rule is literally the Apothicons simply destroying everything, and ultimately, this is exactly what happens when Nikolai destroys the multiverse at the end of the series. Pablo Marinus and Richtofen also point out in audio logs that Monty is just surviving and helping the universe survive the only way he knows how. Indeed, after the Downer Ending, several fans agreed that the universe living under Monty’s rule, even with a cycle, is preferable to oblivion.
• Vindicated by History:
  • Shangri-La was a pretty divisive map when it first released for Black Ops, largely due to the difficulty and tight quarters of the map, and usually had the least amount of players trying to play it. However, it eventually found a following and was warmly received when it was remastered for Zombies Chronicles, especially thanks to the next-gen level graphics given to the map.
  • The first Victis map of Black Ops II, TranZit, got a lot of flack in its first years mostly due to a new character cast everyone had hard time getting used to after the entertaining Ultimis crew from the previous two games, the maligned bus mechanic and the constant dangers presented through the whole area, including Denizens, Avogadros and lava cracks, to name a few. Later on, the inevitable nostalgia factor kicked in, and people started to warm up to its lore which was expanded in the subsequent maps, the protagonists who got Character Development in the subsequent games and comics, and finally the gameplay mechanics which generated a lot of situations full of So Bad, It's Good moments. While TranZit is still considered not the best map of Black Ops II (much less of the series as whole) by all means, the players have grown much softer and forgiving to it than before.
  • Shadows of Evil suffered a lot of growing pains as the first map of Black Ops III. The Zombie AI and damage still needed to be worked out, the Gobblegum system had mixed reception, and the Lovecraftian enemies of the map caused several players to complain that the series was drifting too far from its roots. However, the strong character development, several patches, and later story revelations ended up ensuring that the reception of Shadows of Evil became much warmer, and it's now regarded as one of the finer maps of the series.
  • Clark S. Nova, while a talented musician in his own right, was widely seen as inferior to Elena Siegman, who is widely regarded as the definitive singer for the franchise, and unlike fellow newcomer Malukah, he didn't have the same fanbase that had been cultivated from her works prior to coming aboard, and as such he was easily the least popular of the trio. Nowadays, he's regarded as being their equal, in no small part to his songs being enjoyable (and the maps they were featured in getting better), Elena and Malukah returning to prominence within the series and preventing him from being overexposed to the fanbase, and, of course, him teaming up with the duo to make Archangel, widely regarded as one of the best songs in the franchise.
• Win Back the Crowd: Upon its reveal, Cold War Zombies has seen massive praise by many players, specifically praising its more causal nature, cross-platform and cross-progression with multiplayer, a return to the old Perk system after the poorly-received Black Ops 4 iteration, and offering a new take on the Aether storyline without just bringing Primis and Ultimis back for fanservice (outside of Samantha).
• The Woobie: Oh wow, despite the awesomeness, there's plenty to go around.
  • Samantha Maxis. A brief list of things that happens to her, Richtofen tries to kill her and her father, gets stuck in a machine that controls zombies, and watches her father get killed. No wonder she goes Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. And if you think her Trauma Conga Line was bad in the Aether storyline, hoo boy does the Dark Aether have plenty in store for her. Literally.
  • Dr. Maxis. Along with the above mentioned list of things that happened to his daughter, he also attempts to destroy the world in a vain attempt to reunite with his daughter, which fails. He also realizes that what he had done was horrible and seeks to redeem himself by helping the Origins versions of the Original Characters.
  • Takeo Masaki. His Undying Loyalty to the Emperor of Japan gets crushed when his older self explicitly states that it was the him that put his older self in such horrible conditions. He doesn't take it well, but sucks it up enough to let his future self find peace, via Seppuku, while acting as the kaishakunin.

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