Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's Season 1 Zombies Content Reveals A Pattern For Future Seasons
The rabid fan base of Call of Duty Zombies has been hungry for more content in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Season 1 has brought a few new additions to keep fans of the game’s survival mode busy. From a holiday-themed limited-time mode to daily challenges and Battle Pass weapons, there is a solid amount of Season 1 Zombies content for players to enjoy. However, with no new Zombies map arriving this season, extra modes and features are all that players will have to explore in Season 1 — something that may continue going forward.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War may be doing some different things with its content release schedule, but like previous Call of Duty games, a pattern for Zombies releases can already be narrowed down. Based on the content added to Zombies in Season 1 and the content supposedly coming in Season 2, a rough outline of a new Zombies release schedule presents itself. Not only does this new schedule make sense when compared to older Zombies offerings, but it hints at the types of content that will be seen in future seasons of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War reviews pointed out the game’s lack of content at launch, and the Zombies game mode was no exception. While many believe that the core mechanics of the mode are better than ever, only a single map has been available to players since launch — the first time this has happened since the mode’s debut in 2008’s Call of Duty: World at War. With Zombies map variety lacking on day one for the first time in over a decade, players were expecting to see a new map in Season 1. Unfortunately, that has not happened.
It has been confirmed that the first additional Zombies map will arrive in Season 2, which will likely be sometime in February or March of 2021. Intriguingly, this is a lot like the old Zombies release pattern, which would see a map released every 3 months or so following the game’s launch. While Zombies maps may be free releases this year, it seems Treyarch is following a similar method of releasing the new Zombies content. Like with the older Treyarch titles, players can expect to see new Zombies maps every few months.
With this in mind, it is all-but-guaranteed that there will be more situations for Zombies fans that are like the one currently seen with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 1. It seems highly unlikely that Treyarch will be able to release a new, full-fledged Zombies offering every single season, ensuring that there are “off-seasons” for Zombies maps. However, as Season 1 has shown, this does not mean that Zombies fans will be ignored completely during these off-seasons. In fact, for the first time in Zombies history, players will be getting new content to play during the downtime between post-launch maps.
It seems that fans of Call of Duty Zombies can expect to see a Zombies map in every other post-launch Season. This would mean that new Call of Duty Zombies maps will arrive in Seasons 2, 4, and 6, with Seasons 3 and 5 mirroring Season 1. In these off-seasons, Zombies players can expect to see content similar to what they are getting from the inaugural season of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Instead of maps, seasons 3 and 5 will likely introduce new game modes and features for Zombies fans.
Players should expect to see extra game modes like the recently added Jingle Hells playlist coming to the game in these mapless seasons. New features could be added to the game as well, just like Season 1’s addition of the daily challenge system that was previously seen in the Zombies modes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. With the game still missing an Elixir/Gobblegum system as well, there is potential for a similar feature to arrive in one of the seasons where a map does not.
With heavily requested Zombies features like split-screen arriving alongside Season 1, these off-seasons for Zombies could be a blessing in disguise. Giving Treyarch the chance to respond to community feedback on the previous Zombies map and make improvements to the game based on fan suggestions, the time between map releases can be used to improve the game further. Beyond that, players can be given new content and gameplay systems that add to the previous map, setting up a pathway to success for later maps as well.
The knee-jerk reaction from Call of Duty Zombies fans when seeing that maps may only come every other season is likely one of disappointment. While this is understandable due to the game’s lack of map variety at launch, the reality is that new Zombies maps will still be arriving at a very similar speed to the previous Treyarch Call of Duty games. Beyond a similar release schedule, players will be getting content in between the new map drops as opposed to sitting around and waiting on new teasers.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s Zombies mode includes great new features already, and that list of mechanics should only be expanding based on the content provided with Season 1. If the Zombies mode does follow a pattern of a new map dropping every other season, this can give Treyarch the time needed to ensure a polished release as well as improve upon the content currently in the game. Exciting, limited-time modes can also be added, with new gameplay systems and easter eggs bringing variety to the experience. Based on what Treyarch has done thus far, players can expect a Season of improvements, game modes, and smaller additions after every Season that sees a new map released.
While fans would no doubt prefer to see a map drop every season, this seems unrealistic based on the resources given to the Zombies team and the time required to make each map. By looking at the pattern for Zombies content thus far, players can set expectations for each Season ahead of time, allowing for those invested in the mode to not be let down by seasons that do not feature a map. While the wait between new Zombies maps is going to be just as long as ever, there will finally be things to do in the mode to make that gap between releases more bearable — a major victory that longtime Zombies fans should appreciate.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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