The Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies lore is among the best in any video game franchise. Despite this game franchise having very little story to it, the developers have somehow crafted a decades-long story that rivals some of the best story-driven games in history. The Legend of Zelda, God of War, Resident Evil, Dragon Age, Fallout, Mass Effect, and so many other franchises have lore to connect the threads and line up story beats. With Black Ops, there are no real story beats in zombies mode. The lore is pieced together from Easter Eggs and a lot of connective threads. Here’s why it’s so fascinating.
Why Black Ops Zombies Lore Rules
It’s very hard to find a storyline for a game mode that doesn’t have any major plot. While the Black Ops Zombies lore does come from a loose, background story, it’s very different from Call of Duty campaigns. Those are plot-based, while zombies mode is really not. It’s mostly round-based survival, and there’s no real endgame. You simply play until the undead horde is too much to withstand and then try again. There are Easter eggs, which refer to optional things you can do for secrets the development team did. Those are the backbone of the ultra-rich lore.
Many players have never really gotten into the lore, at least not while playing the game. It is hard enough to do what each map intends for you to do, let alone find the secrets that have been planted. Surviving long enough is a big challenge, and adding an in-game to-do list only adds to that. As a result, most players have never seen the Origins ending cut scene from Black Ops 2 or seen the rockets take down Earth in Moon from the original Black Ops.
It Never Ends
The Black Ops Zombies lore, which continues to get more and more convoluted every time there’s a new game, takes all the Easter eggs and makes them something more. Similarly, the Five Nights at Freddie’s lore is only fractionally based on what actually happens in the games. It rules because it demonstrates a level of interest and care that so many developers don’t have. The Treyarch team took the time to implement these story beats and fun side quest-esque activities for players’ benefit.
There’s no reason there should be an underlying story behind shooting zombies endlessly, let alone one as interesting as the Black Ops Zombies lore. That may have gone by the wayside in later games, but the early portions of the story are as fun as any told in gaming. Gaming, mind you, is a significant art form capable of telling great stories. Sometimes, those excellent stories come in strange and unexpected packages. That includes the Black Ops zombies lore.
Brief Synopsis of the Storyline
Here’s a quick, extremely brief version of the key points in the zombies storyline. Edward Richtofen and Ludwig Maxis were two German scientists in World War II who used an element to try and teleport things. Incidentally, they created the undead horde and subsequently fought to try and take control of them. Maxis destroyed the Earth with rockets in Black Ops 1 and became one with electricity, while Richtofen hears voices from the Aether and Dark Aether and tries to convince human characters to stop Maxis. He is, of course, hoping to stop Maxis only to benefit himself and take control.
Eventually, that universe is destroyed. A child Richtofen (from that ending scene of Origins) and a young Samantha Maxis, who spends part of the time as the one in control of the zombies, come to a new universe, but things eventually spiral out of control thanks to her zombies-related powers. The new universe, in which the Black Ops 6 portion of the storyline as well as a few preceding games takes place, sees that young Richtofen grow up, but his nefarious nature hasn’t gone away. I highly suggest checking out some detailed YouTube videos on the subject, because, as I mentioned, it’s fascinating.
As Richtofen Would Say, Bye-Bye
The Black Ops zombies lore shouldn’t really exist. It was an add-on mode that was discovered by accident when developers were messing around with some textures. It developed into one of the most fun game modes in any multiplayer game, but it didn’t end there. The teams that worked on each game took care to supply fans with enough of a story to keep them interested, and it exploded from there.
Now, six games (not including a few non-Black Ops titles that have zombies) later, there are no signs of stopping this storyline. Part of me wants to see it on a big screen, but the other part knows there’s just no way to really bring it to a movie or even a TV show. That doesn’t matter very much when all the games exist already.
