The Zombies game mode has earned its place as a staple of the Call of Duty franchise. Many players now buy each game exclusively for the co-operative challenge. However, popular as it is, CoD: Zombies is still draped in mystery. From fun little easter eggs, to full-fledged mysteries that are still awaiting explanation, Call of Duty Zombies has captured the attention of fans worldwide for nearly a decade. Even if you’re a fan like us, there are plenty of secrets squirrelled away you may not have seen. Here are five things we bet you didn’t know about Call of Duty Zombies.
5. Zombies was nearly scrapped
Call of Duty: World at War was a transitional title in many ways, but what stuck out in the minds of countless CoD fans was that it was the first title to officially introduce the Zombies mode. Zombies has since returned with each subsequent Treyarch title, and further down the line it’s also hopped into games from other development teams. While this may not surprise you, what if we told you that the Zombies mode nearly didn’t happen?
Zombies was initially intended as a side project that some of the development team at Treyarch started building without approval. It began as a fun, extra level with the sole purpose of seeing how long you could last. When word about it spread around the studio, the team couldn’t stop playing, and would challenge each other to beat more and more rounds. It got to the point where staff members and even some of Activision’s publishing team would regularly email studio heads to ask about the mode.
However, despite its popularity within the company, there was no shortage of pushback concerning the new mode. It always skirted the edge between approval and being tossed aside. The official map in World At War, Nacht Der Untoten, was labeled “nazi_zombie_prototype” in the game code. No map name, no special denotation, just a basic build that was played internally. As a result, despite still being built, Zombies was never publically announced.
For those that remember Call of Duty: World at War, the launch of the game never showcased the Zombies mode from the start menu. Instead, it was an Easter Egg for completing the game’s campaign. Once discovered, the mode blew up, and ended up in such high demand that it has cemented its place in the series ever since.
4. The first Call of Duty Zombies character
If we were to ask who the first character in the Zombies mode was, what would your answer be? For eight years, we’ve known about our core roster of Richtofen, Dempsey, Nikolai, and Takeo, but who started the fire all those years ago in the early stages of World At War’s Nacht der Untoten map?
Strangely enough, only one of the now-established cast was present at the time. The remaining characters were all standard Marines that, according to the story, crashed at the site (Nacht der Untoten takes place on an abandoned airfield). Our one and only character in Nacht der Untoten was Dempsey, a US Marine who had made his way to the facility. Interestingly enough, Dempsey was voiced by a different actor at the time, so the likeliness of him depended entirely upon his image back in World At War. Don’t worry too much if you missed out on this detail, as he was hardly a fleshed-out character at the time.
Though it was live for the world to play, Zombies was still in it’s early stages, and a storyline containing four of Call of Duty’s most iconic figures wouldn’t be realised until later down the line. It took eight months from World at War’s launch for us to finally be introduced to Richtofen, Dempsey, Nikolai, and Takeo in the Shi No Numa map. Prior to that? Dempsey was the only named face in Nacht der Untoten, making him the first Zombies character.
3. The Vril
The secretive and alien Vril played a major role in the Zombies storyline for a brief moment in time, but they continue to intrigue players to this day. The celebrity-laden Call of the Dead level has never proven to hold much relevance to the current Zombies storyline, but it introduced a mystery that still has many players scratching their heads.
The Vril are based upon real urban lore and legends, first seen in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel, “The Power of the Coming Race.” Their existence has turned into not only a Zombies conspiracy, but a real-life one too. According to the story, the race dwelled in the hollow core of the Earth, which allowed a society to grow and flourish unbeknown to humanity.
Having telepathic and other parapsychological abilities, the Vril were a more advanced race than humans. The conspiracy goes that they worked directly with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi forces to create theoretical weaponry they had proposed including the Wonder Weapons found in the Zombies game type.
The presence of the Vril can be seen in the very core Nazi Zombies through specific Wonder Weapons. The mysterious species also influence the Call of the Dead mission with the Vril Generator alongside the VR-11. Mysteriously, the Vril Generator was included in Black Ops 3’s Der Eisendrache DLC map, but no explicit explanation has been given as to how the Vril tie in at this point.
They appear to be a variant of the popular “precursor race” storyline, and are often referred in Zombies as the “Keepers”. Completing a certain sequence of events in Der Eisendrache’s will let you face off against a Keeper Ghost, letting you see one of the Vril up close and personal.
2. The Tranzit Jet Gun and Paralyzer connection
Tranzit is often disregarded in the eyes of Call of Duty Zombies fans. Considered to be a failure, the map certainly had a great deal of potential, introducing a lot of different ideas. It was the first map of its size and is still the only map that has separate areas that were made playable on solo.
One huge detail the map introduced was buildable in-game items, including the Jet Gun Wonder Weapon. The Jet Gun, as strange as it may sound, is actually a prototype for the Paralyzer. The weapons are incredibly similar and have the same physique. When examining the two, it’s important to note their strikingly similarity in two main functions.
Both weapons kill zombies through a swirling gust of wind that slows them down before annihilating them. The second similarity is the ability to boost around with the weapon. The Paralyzer is heavily revered for the ability to do both things, yet thanks to the level it appeared on, most don’t make the connection with the Jet Gun, introduced just a few maps ahead of its time.
1. The Illuminati
Favourite baddies of conspiracy theorists around the world, the Illuminati have also proven popular with game developers for years, and Call of Duty Zombies is no exception. In fact, there’s a generous smattering of references to the shadowy world rulers dating back to the early years of the game mode.
Specifically noted on the Call of Duty: Black Ops maps Five and Ascension, the Illuminati play into the lore in a way that has yet to be explained. In Five, every special round indicated that you would have a visit from the Pentagon Thief. For those that have never played the map, he was a character that would chase you around and steal your equipped weapon. Upon the theft, you would teleport away, forcing you to chase him down. Basically a huge pain in the rear.
If you succeeded in killing him, you got your weapon back as well as max ammo.The thief’s bag straps listed an Illuminati code that reads “living dead.” The Ascension map was also littered with nods to the Illuminati, but most prominent of these were the All Seeing Eyes on the monitors scattered around the map. At various times, randomly placed television sets across the map would display the famous illuminati eye-in-the-triangle motif. Again, we were never given an explanation as to why, but the obsession with the Illuminati was certainly present.
With the Call of Duty: WW2 just released, we can no doubt expect a trickle of further mysteries as players explore. And who knows, perhaps some of the mysteries we’ve just covered will rise from the grave like shamblers that gave their name to the mode we now love.