The offerings ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode were recently expanded with the launch of Season One Reloaded, with this anticipated update adding the Citadelle des Morts map to the title. As the first post-launch Zombies map to come to the game, a lot of pressure was on Citadelle des Morts to shake things up while maintaining the clear respect for traditional Zombies experiences thatBO6has.
As expected,Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Citadelle des Morts carried forward the story and core cast of characters of Terminus, one of the game’s launch maps, with the map’s sinister castle setting being reminiscent of some of the bestCoDZombies experiences of the past. Of course, Citadelle des Morts also comes with its own major Easter egg questline and a wide range of secrets for players to uncover; its Wonder Weapon swords even have their own unique upgrade paths with a wide range of difficulty. Citadelle des Morts has also introduced character-specific Easter egg quests toCoDZombies, massively broadening the horizons of exploration and replayability going forward.
Character-Specific Quests Could Be the Way Forward For Black Ops 6 Zombies
Call of DutyZombies has gone through a huge amount of change in recent years, with2020’sBlack Ops Cold Warinfamously introducing the Outbreak Zombies formulato the popular and longstanding mode. This centered some Zombies experiences around massive open areas tied to in-game objectives, being a stark change from the traditional round-based and claustrophobic maps of priorCoDtitles.
This was taken a step further withModern Warfare 3and its reuse ofWarzoneassets for Zombies. In contrast,Black Ops 6won fans over by instead returning to the traditional gameplay through round-based experiences and a focus on a core cast of Zombies playable characters at the center of the game’s narrative. Perhaps predictably, this has been a huge element ofBlack Ops 6Zombies' early success, with Citadelle des Mort smartly taking this return to tradition and adding a fascinating new spin to it.
Aside the usual major Easter egg quests andweapon upgrade tasks of Citadelle des Mort, the recently added map also has a character-specific quest for Maya, a core Zombies playable figure that was only recently introduced to the franchise. By interacting with a radio within the map while playing as Maya and unlocking a door, players can fight through a secret area of Citadelle des Mort, eventually triggering a character-specific cutscene.
With Expanded Rewards, Character-Specific Cutscenes Could Flourish Even More For CoD Zombies
The cutscene sees Maya get revenge on a man named Franco, who was at the center of the abduction of her brother Nathan, whoappeared in the Terminus map as a mutated mini-bossdue to the horrific experiments that had been conducted on him. This provides an excellent narrative bridge between Terminus and Citadelle des Morts while crucially fleshing out Maya’s character even further, with the player also receiving a legendary GS45 pistol for triggering the cutscene.
Going forward, these types of brief yet rewarding character-specific Easter eggs should be a staple of Zombies experiences, because they’re a great way to lean into the individual character arcs ofBlack Ops 6’s major Zombies characters. The rewards for triggering these cutscenes could be expanded to include things like operator skins for the characters in question, greatly encouraging replayability by offering a reason for fans to tackle a map with each character to experience everything it has to offer. Adding clear purpose and intrigue to the endless gameplay ofCoDZombies is one of the most important tasks of the mode’s maps, and a range of unique and personalized cutscene Easter eggs could help accomplish this task in the future.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
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Forced to go rogue. Hunted from within. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.Developed by Treyarch and Raven, Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller set in the early 90s, a period of transition and upheaval in global politics, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the rise of the United States as a single superpower. With a mind-bending narrative, and unbound by the rules of engagement, this is signature Black Ops.The Black Ops 6 Campaign provides dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay that includes a variety of play spaces with blockbuster set pieces and action-packed moments, high-stakes heists, and cloak-and-dagger spy activity.In a best-in-class Multiplayer experience, players will test their skills across 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6.Black Ops 6 also marks the epic return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.
