Treyarch has revealed they’re about to end their work on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s Zombies mode.
CharlieIntel shared this information on a recent tweet. They said:
“Modern Warfare Zombies:
Treyarch confirmed during a creator call this week that their team has shifted “focus to something exciting on the horizon” and that Sledgehammer Games will finish development on remaining MWZ story and content.”
When Treyarch, working with Sledgehammer Games, brought back Zombies for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, it was actually quite different from the wave based survival mode found in original Call of Duty games. This new iteration actually played similar to DMZ, and even had you playing as two teams of 24.
So with this new mode, you had a set list of objectives to accomplish, and meeting those objectives could mean you would take down other human players as well as the zombies. You could also collect loot across the new Zombies mode’s wide open maps, and these were the same maps that were playable in Call of Duty Warzone 2.0.
Furthermore, when you collected loot, you could choose to trade them in for cash, or to keep them, by attempting to extract them when it came time for exfiltration. But it isn’t all just a carbon copy of DMZ.
Like classic Zombies modes in the earlier Call of Duty games, you can still get Mystery Boxes and Perk-a-Cola drinks. There was also an overarching story narrative that was unique to this mode that played out the more you played Zombies.
Now, as to whether Zombies was a success in its new form, feels like a loaded question. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was lambasted by critics, and was the second highest selling game of 2023. Tons of people definitely played Zombies then, and there’s a lot of people playing it today.
But what this announcement is really about is Treyarch indicating that they are moving on to ‘something exciting.’ We have been reporting rumors for weeks now about this year’s upcoming Call of Duty title, and given Activision’s plan for annual releases, it’s Treyarch’s turn to release the game they made.
The rumors have it that that upcoming title is Call of Duty Black Ops Gulf War, which will feature a unique perspective on how that war played out in the intelligence community. Last year’s release showed the signs of rushed development, because Activision had to make snap decisions when it wasn’t clear their deal with Microsoft was going to go through.
So, although technically Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the first Call of Duty published by Microsoft, it really is this year’s entry that is the first full game under new management. While Activision’s teams obviously worked on the title for years, expectations are high that Treyarch won’t embarrass Microsoft with this release. It certainly sounds like Treyarch is confident Microsoft, and us gamers, won’t be disappointed.
