Black Ops 2 Zombie Mode Packs a Lot of Surprises

While the Call of Duty franchise is mostly known for its multiplayer, Treyarch's iteration of the franchise has its own feature that's quickly catching up in both popularity and scope. I'm, of course, talking about the studio's highly-regarded zombie mode.

In an interview with Xbox360Achievements, Activision's Director of Brand Development Jay Puryear talks about just that — though, not by much — as Puryear states they "want fans to find them for themselves" what these surprises were.

We would love to be able to talk more about all of this, but I think when you look at the fans of Zombies and what has driven that community is the idea of letting them find those things out for themselves. So we're very protective over that. We don't want to give away too much, we want to let the fans know that we're listening, that we've added some things to the game that they asked for, but we really want them to have that sense of discovery and to find out all of these things. We want it to be a surprise, we've worked hard to ensure there are lots of surprises in there, and we want the fans to find them for themselves.

Additonally, Puryear was also asked what the "key remit" for the mode this time around.

I think the Zombie team – just like the single-player and multiplayer team – looked at it and started tearing it apart, looking at what makes Zombies great. What is it that the fans are really looking for? I think it's a combination of the strategy that's come into play, but I think the team were most excited about jumping into the multiplayer engine too, and what that brought. It brings Zombie theatre, it brings leaderboards, it brings stats, and it really gives the team the opportunity to introduce different things within that, where we can see that world is much bigger than it used to be. I think for us it was really about evolving the story, some of those key plotlines and some of those key fundamentals that are associated with Zombies, twist it a bit, turn it on its head a bit so that now instead of a particular room or something, maybe you have to travel to a different place.

So the idea of being able to venture out into this huge environment that's a lot bigger than it has been in the past, and really find these strategies that I've mentioned is key. And then there's the bus, which is very interesting. People are going to be able to use the bus in a very strategic way.