At the end of BO1, I had arguments with my friends. I was the only one with the foresight to see that zombies wasn't over. The rest of them were like, "They blew up the earth. There's no more zombies. They'll start on a new mode for the next game." Guess who's still right more than 10 years later. Ha.
@@raven75257to this guy's Friends credit, before bo1 was MW2 that had survival and after was MW3, also with survival. Zombies was by no means a set in stone mode. It hadn't reached that level yet, i remember the multiplayer sweats kinda used to make fun of the zombies players, that's how different of a time It was for call of duty and for the world in general when COD was truly the biggest game there was (unlike now that the competition Is extremely fierce).
I think it’s cool that someone finally acknowledges how frustrating the ending to origins was. I think they handled it well for most of that story but at the time it felt like fnaf level story telling. Ultimately I think blundell didn’t know where to take the story and did his best to try to work around the fact that the world in the original universe is essentially destroyed.
It's funny you say that, I think FNAF and CoD Zombies exist in a very similar storytelling niche; essentially, they're both the narrative equivalent of junk food: they're not nutritious (have no meaningful moral or message or character arc), but they're tasty (fun and satisfying). Which is fine, there's room for that kind of storytelling in our lives. Both stories exist to satisfy the innate pleasure we get from a series of events, and the lore (and mystery) that builds up around those events. It's part of why I love both; _most_ stories I enjoy have some meaningful unifying idea, or a character that grows in a relatable way, or otherwise a message (good or bad) to convey. So it's nice to have these stories that are, in essence, a collection of fun action figures, as opposed to deep characters.
@@Mega-Brick completely agree. Alot of that is because both games started off in similar places. Both were made essentially for fun with no story in mind. After it was successful then there was a demand for story so they wrote the story as they went. I think the only difference is that Scott cawthon cared so much about the story for so long that he only ever retconned one thing prior to sister location. I think the team behind zombies more or less cared about the story to the extent that the story could create cool maps.
@@Mega-Brickthe problem is they keep on ending the story over and over again. Resurrecting it just to shoot it down again. But don’t worry they can just use the multiverse to keep it going, it gets tiring and over-explains itself to the point it’s not interesting anymore. I think Origins is a fun map but ruined the mystery in the story by trying to explain itself.
me personally i found origins to be an excellent ending. It left a perfect amount of info to setup for bo3's story, without going overboard with it, very unlike everything recently
The problem with the non- treyarch games endings is because they were setting up for a continuation without anticipating the Activision might shut their idea down
On the how Nikolai could have handled his death without traumatizing Samantha: He could have easily asked her to pour him a glass of what the others took. "Samantha, could you pour me some wine?" "Why?" "Because I cannot do it myself." Samantha grabs a bottle and pours some into a cup and hands it to Nikolai. Nikolai pats Samantha on the head as he toasts to Eddie. "To you both, the bravest of us all. The portals opens and Sam and Eddie walk through it, Eddie tries to look back at Nikolai but Sam keeps him looking forward. As the world begins to fade, Nikolai goes and takes a seat next to his friends and takes a sip as he rests his eyes one final time.
Wait really…. Seriously… how could you, dude! You really went with “a glass of wine”, fucking WINE! If homeboy’s drinking anything, no matter which NilokI we’re talking; pour that man some VODKA!!!!
@@DoomReaper115 I mean vodka would be more fitting for, perhaps, Ultimis Nikolai, but Gorad Krovi makes Nikolai seem like he gives it up (throws away his counter's bottle). Also most of what the others drank looks red, so I went with wine.
To be honest I’ve never liked how the story changed from a nazi experiment gone wrong to a multiversal battle between aliens to take over Agartha or whatever it was. Once the story took itself seriously every single aspect of zombies just worsened as a whole.
The idea that the story went from a group of walking stereotypes of WW2 soldiers to serious people fighting for the future of the planet is hilariously dumb. It makes zero sense and is why I completely believe Blundell is a complete hack who thinks he’s smarter than he is. Prior to him the zombies story was crazy people doing crazy shit and making mistakes that doom the world and how people interact with that world, and then he comes into the series it turns into the good guys trying to get the of the bad guys, it goes from something with interesting and fun ideas into the typical bad vs good, just pathetic
@@Johaufs Based. That is exactly what I thought once BO3 rolled around. If anything the whole plot follows the classic archetype of a capeshit story involving world-ending threats and these so called heroes (that were meant to be taken as you said, a comedic stereotype of ww2 soldiers)
With Black Ops 4’s ending, it was just getting things over with. I think they needed to give up. There was literally no other way. And I thought it was a very emotionally impactful end, especially when it’s up to the player the let Samantha and Eddie walk to the light while you hear the characters you played as for a decade recite what they wanted in life. But the way the game lead up to this conclusion was sloppy. All the plot points that lead up to this were dropped or rushed. That’s the big issue.
What? Man they could of done so much more but peiple woukd rather ignore other people's ideas so they stay up at the top...seriously there was so many ideas from others they could of ran with...and bo4 wasn't so bad, it was how it came out was horrible and how they first started the "buy skins for guns" shtick in cod. Seriously so many ideas so many weird, fun, serious etc attempts could of been made but they wanted to to with the military ideas which is lame in zombies
It's very fitting for a gamemode about surviving as long as possible (which was also represented in the characters' ploy with the cycle and everything) to have this ultimate ending of "we need to give up and not survive."
@@DiddlePantsFTW as soon as you bring the multiverse and time loops in lore, destroying said multiverse is the only way a time loop can end. write a better ending if you are such a good writer
@@mustafakemalataturk1273there where options for better endings. Following your logic, bo4 shouldn't even have happened. The ending of bo4 contradicts the whole Aether storyline
The reason why Call of the Dead or Tag was used because symbolically it's where the original 4 first met and were brought together after they killed Pablo by "mistake." It's where you can say the crew really got their start and having it end where it started I think is nice.
I didn't think abt that lol poor Pablo I remember when that map came out listening to the radios and imagining a 5th crew member and the kind of lines he would have hahaha
Also, call of the dead's legacy is with the celebrity cast, which include George Romero. The same George Romero who's considered to be the essential godfather of zombie stories in media, the idea of the dead coming to life with a hunger for flesh, yadda yadda, and the tribute to him in the map is indicative of that- it's ending where things began in a more metaphorical sense too.
I think the originally planned Great War map would have been a far better ending, but I think that Call of the Dead isn't the worst thing that could have happened and there is some symbolism to it.
It's clear the writers just made it up as they went along. It became such a messy storyline that became impossible to follow. It went downhill hard once it abandoned the zombies being the main threat and introduced the multiverse and aliens and such.
Even by their own admission, Treyarch was just making it up as they went and using community ideas to progress the plot. The problem is when they abandoned the charm of uncovering conspiracies and such by going the Lovecraftian cosmic horror route. You know, a different style of horror entirely
Nah, Black Ops 3 was the peak of the mode as far as character depth and story went, I would say that they fell off when the Zombies team lost the ability to focus on one game at a time, ie Bo4
Welllll blundell had a plan for bo4 while making bo3 wasnt fully realized and jimmy zelinski didnt really know how to continue the story from moon, but blundell put a lot of tbought into things
@@sslingo absolutely. Moon was peak for the story. Then bo2 the story kind of plummeted but the ending worked ok with buried. Then there was origins...
One problem I have with the whole thing is that by destroying the blood vials on the younger Richtofen, the Richtofen that's lived through the cycle ensures he can't exist. The moment the vials were abandoned, the cycle should've unraveled because the crew should've ceased to exist. Even with Monty propping up the cycle - it's only allowed to exist because of those blood vials.
I had thought of this too. The events of Botd are suppose to take place between Zetsubou No Shima and Gorod Krovi. If Post Revelation Richtofen destroyed the blood vials, this alters the events that lead up to Revelations. So this should technically mean that Post Rev Richtofen shouldn't exist due to the events of Revelations never occurring. It's a grandfather paradox. However... Post Revelations Richtofen had consumed the blood vials, which specifically protect him from yhe effects of paradoxes. Monty mentions this as he's questioning how the Primis Crew are still there, as they technically shouldn't exist
@@doctorjordanb.dankerson1624 This would actually be a grandfather's paradox, of a grandfather's paradox - cancelling each other out and giving the cycle a definite end and beginning, the exact thing that grandfather paradoxes cannot have. Because the original cycle is already a grandfather's paradox. Monty sent them back in time in Revelations; but they had already sent back in time from the very beginning.
That's exactly why you never add time travel to your story. It's incredibly difficult to make time travel work, and in 99% of cases it only makes the story worse
Also Great Theory about Samantha's Voice (American when Pure, German when corrupted) but the only reason she had a American accent in Origins is because at the time they didn't have the original Samantha Voice actor so they got another one (that could also explain why in the Origins trailer her voice sounds corrupted since they didn't have the voice at the moment). Also because of not getting voice actors in time yet again is the reason Dead of the night was a DLC map.
Jason also made shit up as he went along. The new director of the zombies storyline who worked under Blundel said as such. They just didn't have the voice actor at the time.
Ya but didn't he tease us about the red zombie eyes but it ended up meaning nothing. One of the devs was just like "make the eyes red" and they went with it no reason
@DiddlePantsFTW inconsistencies with the storytelling. That and the recent interview with the new lead developer on Bo6, let me see if I can find a link for ya.
I think thematically the BO4 story is incredible, the mobsters breaking the cycle causing the timeline to change and primis to get stuck on alcatraz resulting in the whole cycle ending and the universe ending. The way it was executed however, having to share the spotlight with chaos and being solely on remastered maps feels incredibly lackluster.
I really really wish that BO4's ending had the originally planned Great War map, same with the scrapped Chaos story ending which seemed to have possibly been Atlantis.
On the note of them already having the assets in BO4 - Nuketown, Call of the dead (Lighthouse), and Mob of the dead (Alcatraz) were all used in blackout’s maps.
I feel you on the BO4 ending, I hated it when I originally saw it back then. Saw it as justification for me not continuing that game past Ancient Evil... But back looking back now, seeing the fact that budgets got slashed, the game was pushed to release early, that Activision didnt just break their promise to let Treyarch do more then one year of content but also forced them to make Cold War, learning they can no longer have a main zombies cast but they have to use operators in the future... I cant help but feel like the ending wasn't just trying to end the story, but to express their frustration with everything going on at the studio at the time. They tried to find a way, but found there was none and burned it all like Nikolai doing the best they could. I may not like it, but... I can at least respect it.
I think the originally planned Great War map would have been a far better ending, but I can understand with all the problems that happened why they couldn't do it.
From what i remember everyone hated origins ending but not the actual map itself. From day 1 ive always heard mostly good things about origins. Only bad thing being the ending.
My personal grievance with zombies that I don't ever remember seeing Zombies UA-camrs touch on back in the day was that simply put, 3Arc had no consistent direction for their story whatsoever. From WaW through BO1, I could see the progression of the story and its characters. Richtofen's goals and his manipulation of the other 3 characters via in-game quotes or radios, why the Germans wanted to harness 115 and the U.S. following suit in the arms race (technically going back as far WW2 in zombies canon via a Der Riese radio asking for more funds), why the crew traveled to each map, and everything remaining mostly grounded. From Bo2 onwards, it was a shit show of them leaving too many plotholes and then "fixing" them after several maps. Jumping all of the place and different crews with no cohesive story or connections other than Victus and Primis Richtofen. And even then, its never stated what happened to the OG crew or why they couldn't stop Richtofen and Maxis themselves after Moon. They can obviously go back to Earth. They tried "fixing' all this and more with Origins ending being a "play date", panicked when people didn't like it, and went the multiverse route to explain away any misconceptions and mistakes. Which is cheap and lazy. Sure you get more creative freedom as a writer and mao designer but its grating to have to seek out comics, morse codes, ciphers to understand this shit. I'm not getting graded on my Cod zombies knowledge so I'm not doing some HW for my hobby. A 1/3 of my hobby no-less.
You can Thank Blundell for that Multiverse crap. The BO2 Destroyed Earth Story felt rushed. I honestly feel like Jimmy ended it with Buried cuz he knew he was gonna leave once his final map was completed and decided to finish his story in a very anticlimactic way. Then there's the current broken Treyarch storyline.
The bo2 story is so bad we went from ww2 - cold War space race conspiracy theories arms race type shi to ppl in 2025 eating zombie flesh and hearing voices... Ok
@lookatmyzombies9377 at least it's a somewhat consistent story. The New story has way too much stuff they haven't explained that completely destroys the narrative. How is Chaos cannon to dark Aether if we never get any answers other than that one scientist knowing Allister and Allister gets murdered by the Nazis for the Device. Also why are their difference Gods and demons? Also who's even controlling the Zombies? The order, those gods and demons? The Apothicons? (MWZ made cannon) or the forsaken? At least folks who eat zombies flesh that's infused 115 makes sense why they would hear them
@@CactusInsane Chaos is very much an alternate form of it, Not congruent with the actual Chaos story(pretty normal thing to do overall) the Gods and Demons within The Dark Aether existed within it before the Multiverse collapsed in Tag, in fact the collapse of the multiverse is what even brought to the residents of The Dark Aether that there were other worlds. Who's in control throughout the Dark Aether story is actually really easy(and honestly might be the easiest it's been since BO3, in Vanguard it's Kortifex using his bond with Van List, and in Cold War it's The Forsaken, and in MWZ it's The Entity. Although I am curious one thing, What do you mean by the Apothicons being made canon in MWZ(which tbf they technically always have been as Dark Aether is a sequel to Aether), It could be something in a story cutscene that i've yet to see but as far as i'm aware we have no evidence that they're still kicking around. Nothing you really said actually destroys the narrative though, at worst it just shows they have more stuff to explore, granted that's to be expected given Cold War was focused mainly on the rivalry between Requiem, Omega Group and how The Forsaken is playing on that conflict, Judging from what we've seen I wouldn't be shocked to find out BO6 is gonna be focusing a bit more on the Dark Aether itself.
They explained the origins ending, the ending is the good soul of richtofen and samantha in agartha in the house of dr monty. Also idk who was saying origins was bad i vividly remember people loving this map
The map is good, but at the time, and now the hype died, this ending was baaaad, the name was origins but nothing was explained, and it started a whole new story, Zombies before and after BO3 are totally different because of this
@@raven75257nope. Maybe story wise it's poorly received especially after bo3 but literally everyone loved at least getting the staffs and being op for doing a fairly annoying task. Also the chronicles version has changes that make it more frustrating like panzer being tanky.
In my opinion the story died as soon as it stopped being about a German super soldier experiment gone wrong. The story was at its best when it seemed like the outbreak and where they came from was the result of Germans using 115 to experiment with teleportation and creating unkillable soldiers. The more grounded waw was how I wish they continued it.
@@lucast7092 barely, what we need is a completely fresh new story without any connection whatsoever to the dark aether or aether whatsoever, no Samantha no Eddie no connections to the previous story.
I think it was good but it was also like "buy our next game" and you can only pull that one so many times before your budget gets cut and ope you have to half-ass your real ending now
45:55 That's why I hate the end in bo4, because the whole theme of the Aether story is about finding a way and not giving up. How does the story end? They give up? What is here being communicated? When everything is against you, give up because you cant do anything either way? What was the journey for? Why I liked this story so much, is because Richtofen new that whatever he does, he is not going safe the universe and live through it, but he still tries. Richtofen is scared as hell of dying and thats that's why he "created" the blood vials. At the start he only planned to safe himself, throughout bo3 he gets attached to his crew, grows and wants to safe them too. He makes the conscious decisions to get them the blood vials too. The Vials, the reason the Cycle exist in first place, where "created" out of a egotestical desire. In my opinion the perfect ending for his character arc would have been that he accept his death and through this acceptance and a sacrifice making it possible for his friends to live. To give his brothers the life he could never achieve. His character journey would have went full circle. From saving himself, to trying to safe others, to giving his life for others (and the universe). And through that, bo3 wouldnt have been filler. Because it literally is now, with the ending we have.
The way you summed up the themes of the story is perfect. Bo3 actually had a pretty good message of "always finding a way", but then bo4 pulls a 180 and tries to pull a "its time to let it go" storyline. So which is it? Keeping fighting or letting go?
This to me is all about perspective. I don’t think BO4’s ending is about “giving up”, I think it’s about passing the torch. The journey of Aether is going through the past, revisiting these places we’ve known for years. It’s all about sending them off. We are perpetually looking for the answer to how these things end, we weren’t happy with the “always find a way” ending of Revelations, which very much so mirrors BO4. Rev is going through this amalgamation of what has come before in a “look how far we’ve come” sort of way, we are doing the same in BO4, but instead it’s a “we’re back here again”. We needed to put it all to bed. We NEEDED to look to the future. The Primis crew and the Ultimis crew don’t give up at all. They realise it’s time to look to the future, that’s what Eddie and Sam are. Letting their hopes fly in the wind as these two walk in to their new world. They’ll never get to live out those dreams, but they let go of them so that others can do what they couldn’t. I think it’s rather beautiful.
@@owentypebeat2449 I get u, but could you explain me what purposes their Journey even had? "Giving up" immediately would have been the way better choice. What is being communicated, is really dark and depressing. What I don't mind in storys but it doesn't fit primis narrative at all. It's a 180. Also the majority of Primis and ultimis didn't have a say to their deaths, they died without consent. I don't think it is about passing the torch, because nikolai wanted the kids to live in a Multiverse without any zombies. That's why he mass "genocided" the multiverse 💀. Anyways, his sacrifice and all the other sacrifices get invalidated through cold war. Because the sacrifice leaded to nothing, zombies and eldritch gods are back. But for sure, the ending sequence was beautiful af. But if you think about it, the ending is really bad
@@UnknownUser-bk2kf The point of the journey was to keep on fighting. You go and go and go until you can’t anymore, then when it’s time, you let go, trying to make the future a better place. And if they gave up, then that ‘better place’ wouldn’t have happened. Not gonna sit here and defend Cold War story wise, I think it’s kind of bad, but it’s just natural for things to happen again, it’s all about how we get past it this time around, that’s what matters. Terrible things have happened forever, it’s just part of what life is, it makes sense for more bad shit to happen, but what’s important is that in the end things will be better, and you keep trying towards that end goal.
@@owentypebeat2449 I think u r missing something. There was a better place, the cycle isn't really a cycle. In those universes (bo3), eddie, Samantha an the rest lived a happy normal life. In contrast to bo4/CW everybody "lives" and is doesnt need to worry about zombies. And fighting for the sake of a better future without it ever happening is from a narrative pov rlly weak
To be honest it ended with me in Black Ops 2 buried Richtofen ending. That was the last map and ending I truly felt satisfied with. I hated Black Ops 3 during the majority of its time being in the spotlight and even after Cold War and going back and playing it I still hate it I feel like Black Ops 3 in Origins started the downfall of zombies
What frustrates me the most besides the endings is how little Samantha’s character got. Sure, she was in control of the zombies for two games and a half and she was with us at the end but we genuinely got little of her. We never got a true boss fight against her, you rarely see her interact with any of the crews, hell we only have like four cutscenes with her in it and only two of them involve the true, corrupted Samantha. For a character as important as her, it is a massive misstep to not put more story emphasis on her. And it’s even more frustrating that the version of her that does get a lot of character moments and screentime is her adult self which was uninteresting as hell until she got her powers back after being stuck in the aether which she is again for what’s been like about five years or so. And given how tame they’ve made her even after she got her powers, I don’t think she’ll come back corrupted and we get to explore that. She’ll come back mentally damaged and probably be out of commission which I hope isn’t true given the fact that Ava, her daughter, saw a ghostly vision of her that came out of the dark aether briefly with a dress and a cloak similar to the one she wore as a child.
Little thing I want to say about Der Eisendrache. It's not Origins 2, but more Origins but good. DE has almost every thing we love about Origins with the benefit that it doesn't feel mandatory to go for the bows. You can play that map as either a golden age map or a classic survival map. And that's why I personally love it. And have grown to dislike Origins. That map the literal definition of insanity...
True, i had probably my most fun ever playing a no staffs, mostly ballista only (until it got weak) game training in the crazy place… yet I still had to take more than a few mins in the setup phase to unlock the map/generators.
The big thing requiring staff/bow is the panzer and the de panzer is much more threatening ( not in a fun way imo ) without the bows. Making origins easier to play without going for staffs compared to de
@@yaboiferret8681 On DE you can use the electric trap in the middle to deal with him as well. It's something a lot of people forget. I did too until you said how annoying the panzer is to deal with lol.
@@NorthEevee I don’t find the death ray consistent. It is possible to mess up and for the best results you need to be at the death ray while the panzer spawns. I’ve probably played more origins than de but I’ve planned an absolute ton of both. I can’t reasonably see this as a skill issue, the de panzer is just problematic. The origins panzer is deadly if you get caught lacking but genuinely I don’t see it as a threat in the slightest because he’s designed very fairly. Adding shock charges to the best designed boss in the franchise is the biggest middle finger I’ve ever seen. I like de but find it heavily overrated and it’s purely because of the panzer. Great map shit boss
@@NorthEevee for the record I mean no disrespect. If you like de that’s great. It’s not a bad map but personally the panzer ruins it for me. Plus origins is my favorite so I feel obligated to white knight that shit
I remember when the world building was piecing together who a dismembered arm that’s attacked to a lever belonged to. Finding out it belonged to a corpse was so cool. Now we got Medusa and Cthulhu lmao
For me, the main problem with the mode is that they did not have a defined story and they did it on the fly, something that did affect a little, something that they changed in cold war with a narrative that already has a final or at least a clear idea of how to carry everything
Honestly this is a issue that plagues most stories. By the ending, pretty much all the questions have been answered, no more threads are being weaved. The mystery and discovery is what made the storyline so great. Even during Black Ops 4 which I wasn’t a fan of them continuing the story was still able to give us that intrigue with Blood of the Dead’s twist ending. However, even as a long time fan of the story since WaW, I was way more interested in the Chaos story. It mixed a lot of the concepts from Blundell BO2 maps and BO3 with the more conspiracy theory inspired story of WaW through BO1. I personally felt that Revelations was a good enough ending to the story. The characters going back in time to create the loop was a good enough sacrifice to me. They die for the better tomorrow. Black Ops 4 continuing the story just felt like they didn’t trust us to care for a new set of characters. Which is kinda proven by how recent games don’t even use dedicated crews anymore. Chaos takes the blame for the poor state of BO4 when it was really the aether story. Trying to get people invested in a new story while the story we have been following for years is getting a “true ending” is nearly impossible. Even Treyarch understands the lost potential of that storyline by adding Scarlet’s father into the new Dark Ether storyline. I genuinely feel like zombies would be in a much better place if Treyarch had more faith in the zombies community being open to a new cast of characters.
The thing with Treyarch today, they give up too easily on things. They have the habit of abandoning stuff for the pass 6 years if the community doesn't like their ideas.
Wait wait wait, hol up. You're telling me Allistair Rhodes APPEARS IN THE DARK AETHER STORYLINE????? I'm asking this as someone who has only completed the ees for Cold War and Vanguard, but not MWIII Zombies yet. Nor have I really kept up with all the hype trailers for BO6. So Chaos does continue after all?????
@joshuacapron8358 Chaos is now used as a starting point of this new timeline now. It goes from Chaos BO4-Vanguard Zombies-Cold War-BO6-MWZ . Only problem with it is that they never explained nor state what happen to Scarlett or Diego. Just that Allister died by the hands on the Nazis and the Cult managed to give them the device. What device? They never go in details about it and it's never Explain in CW what happen to all the demons and gods from Vanguard. The Whole New Timeline is more screwed up than the OG one.
@@CactusInsane Wow. Just, wow. Here I was, thinking he died from being turned to stone by Medusa, but I guess he got unpetrified off screen just for the Nazis to kill him. I'm assuming that info comes from audio logs in Vanguard or Cold War? And if Chaos really does tie into Dark Aether, then it begs so many questions now. What then happened to not just the gods from Vanguard, but also all the Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, and Nordic mythological influence found in Chaos, along with all the Vampires and Werewolves that Dead of the Night made clear exist in that universe? Let me guess: they're not going to explain those either....
@@joshuacapron8358According to Audio logs, character quotes, from Vanguard and a bit of Cold War. Basically at some point, Allister destroyed the Artifact in France 1918. Basically the events of Origins happen again just in "Chaos". Some point afterwards the events of WAW zombies take place again except instead of group 935 its the Order aiding the Nazis informing them of the God's and demons. Allister gets captured and killed once they find the source of new power at Shi No Numa for the Device. Again wtf is the device and how is it more powerful than the Artifact from Chaos!? Again they don't explain any of this stuff in Cold War or MWZ. But if you wanna hear something else confusing?MWZ confirmed that The Apothicons are still a thing in the Dark Aether. Thus Comfirming my theory that Nikolais plan was stupid. But yeah they don't really explain anything about these potholes. Even though they said this is supposed to be a new story and timeline😅😂
samantha's accents changing is just an audible inconsistency, it doesn't have to do with her being corrupt or not, it was a change they made in BO2 because it was supposed to be "a new beginning" but since it makes to sense for her to have an american accent they switched it back to a german accent, although it is an interesting way to look at it
What upsets me the most is how far they’ve deviated from their original formula with new zombies. Like I’m decently excited for BO6 but nowhere near as excited as I would be if they ACTUALLY stuck to the core fundamentals like Kevin Drew said they did. Also, Activision Shanghai built most of the last 2 zombies maps in bo4, not treyarch. That explains some things about them.
I like the ending, it makes sense and seems like what Nikolai would do. Sacrifice himself and friends to close all the bad endings, so that Samantha and Eddie could hopefully have a good ending
I agree. It really was the best possible outcome.....until Cold War released and gave us the Dark Aether storyline where no, Samantha doesn't get to finally rest and live a normal life, but must still deal with Zombies and her Aether powers and Element 115. *sigh* Activision's gotta make their money somehow....
@@joshuacapron8358 yep. The creative bank is running low, I wouldn’t be surprised if this universes Nikolai, Takeo, Richthofen, and Dempsey have a part in BO6. But honestly it’s not a big deal to me, I just want round based zombies again🤣. The marketing is going hard rn tho
@@bigtexas517 Lol they'll return with a twist similar to Graves still being alive in MWIII. "You see, we weren't actually in that multiverse we deleted"
nah the ending to bo4 sucked its clear they only did that ending because they didnt have a budget for the great war map. people who defend it like you are idiots
this is an incredible video, both hilarious and informative. i sincerely hope it will have a continuation since i assumed you will continue talking about cold war at the end
My greatest gripe story-wise, is the fact that MOTD is not it's own thing entirely. It reminded my brother and I of one of our favorite game series called "The Suffering" and it was just so cool to me how unique this map was. And then they screwed it up entirely by making BOTD. I think BOTD is an okay map but it just chaps my ass that they connected everything together like that.
The only reason why tag works as an ending is simple because of the name of the map, tag de toten or day of the dead, with it capping off the fist map, night of the dead
There's another layer to it, cause "Tag" (day) and "Nacht" (Night) are not the only opposites, but "Toten" (The dead) and "Untoten" (The undead) are also opposites in a different way.
Bro they obviously made all endings seem final because they didn't know if they'd even get to continue the story. It's supposed to seem like a definitive end while also giving them some wiggle room in the next part if they get to continue it. They most likely had an idea of how to continue from origins but since it was the last dlc they also had to do a fakeout just in case.
Something people don’t talk about enough is how beautiful it was to have a ww2 American Russian Japanese and nazi work together and somehow made us like the nazi
Dude im not gonna lie id love to talk to you about how much i loved the BO4 ending you seem like you'd have some really interesting counter points of what I've typcially heard
Finally someone that like the bo3's endong, i also feel itd the best way to end their story, a bitter but satisfying end. Also the joke hit really hard, just as hard as the second plane
I personally was okay with the moon ending. Out of all of them it is still the most satisfying to me. (If you cut out all the shit the made up to make it work after the fact)
I was so into Zombies back in the day. I mean DEEP. I was looking up all the real life influences of many aspects of zombies from WaW-BO2. I even pieced together a bunch of the clues in BO1 and predicted the Moon map. But the Origins ending made me lose all interest in it. And haven't bought a CoD game since. The only thing that got me nearly as interested was the Chaos Storyline in BO4 which I tried after getting it for free on PS+. And I'm not even gonna get started on that one.
Watching this a month after it came out is crazy. You mention the fact Samantha sounds more German as she gets more corrupted/traumatised. In the Liberty Falls intro, the exact same thing happens to Richtofen
Great video !!, very enjoyable and for the most part pretty accurate to how I remember zombies panning out over the years, smiled and laughed alot to 😂😂🧟♂️
I've honestly always considered my own video essay on how the endings have progressively gotten worse and yet you've captured this better than I ever could. Especially with BO4. I'm also realizing what day I'm watching and commenting on this. We've come full circle I think.
I have no idea who you are, but I am so thankful the algorithm graced me with one of your videos. You are genuinely SO funny and you handled this topic SO well! The one thing I will say though, is that as shitty as the previous games endings were, at least they left some kind of mystery still intact and were executed well. EVERYTHING from BO4 onward ending-wise has been horseshit. Poor execution, poor writing, poor conclusions. ZOMBIES DESERVED BETTER! Aaanyways, I subscribed to your channel and am eagerly awaiting your next upload. Good stuff, dude!
BO4 underperformed and as a result they cut funding and moved on to the next game. If I remember correctly I read that the last two Aether maps were actually outsourced to a smaller Activision studio. It’s a shame because we could’ve gotten more original maps.
BLOOD OF THE DEAD had such an amazing part of adding into the storyline, HOWEVER… that EE has to be hands down one of the WORST in terms of tedious and frustrating if you can’t set it up properly. I remember on launch week having a near 4 hour match because the EE was actively being discovered, only to FAIL and retry it a few more times before doing it. I’ve only completed it one more time since launch 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
I just remember booting up black ops 3 for the first time, excited to see what shadows of evil would bring and going “oooo ok 1920’s-30’s theme cool…. Wait, are those aliens?? Is this still a zombies mode?” After that I just knew the story took a complete 180 from what we had had with the Nazis and stuff
Can I just say no cap no lie me & drew predicted the ending to origins all the way back in kino... When you go into either version of Samantha's room you see a wooden diorama or play set of Der Reise with shrunk down models of Ulutimus on the floor like they are toys. One of us goes, "I wonder if the story is just Sam playing a game?"
I have never heard it more properly explained how Origins made me feel as an autistic child who was obsessed with zombies. I vividly remember everyone arguing that Origins was THE beginning of the Ultimis characters when it contradicts EVERYTHING from before. I dont think i ever got that angry about this stuff since omg
BO3 was like when the one tower had been hit but it’s been a while since that and your like “Well we still got this one sick ass tower still” then BO4 comes in and no more towers 😢
To me, the story started at Nacht and ended at Moon. I was 15 when BO2 came out and spent the summer before doing odd jobs to make enough money to buy the hardened edition just for Nuketown zombies and boy, what a fucking disappointment. I couldn't give a fuck about the Tranzit crew, mob was okay but Origins was the final nail in the coffin. The fact that they set it in WW1 with only 2 weapons from that war was retarded. Watching the trailer and seeing german soldiers with MP40s and STG44s was hilarious.
I never hated origins, like the ending might be kinda mid but... the weapons, the alternate versions of our main cast, the vibes of a steampunk WW1 *chefs kiss*
They did something extremely clever to set up the break in the paradox loop. They had the plane from Mob crash into the Giant. The Mobsters escaped they broke their time loop which had a butterfly effect causing the BO4 versions of the characters to be late to Alcatraz to break their time loop and to help the one mobster left behind to be free with the rest of them and to take down Brutus once and for all. I do think the ending still sucks especially for Victus who came back just to be erased which is super lame unless they come back in Cold War since they are just banished to the Dark Aether which is where our storyline is currently.
Maybe I'm just 'special', but I always interpreted the ending of Origins as being the Ultimis crew somehow traveling back in time and rescuing Samantha from Agartha and consequentially re-writing the timeline so that the prior storyline from WaW up to Buried never happened.
I think you’re forgetting that when BO2 came out, everyone hated Victis and was fucking stoked when Origins came out and brought back the original cast in some capacity. I think that’s a big reason as to why the Victis story ends at “richtofen and maxis duke it out for control and there’s a decision and we see nothing else”
It was always weird to me how the voice actor of dr monty never returned to bo4, im sure that and the budget cut made them close up the whole thing as simple as they could which is suoer disappointing
Something kinda cool but overlooked about the bo4 zombies ending. While it was disappointing in some ways in bittersweet in other canonically it created our new current all in 1 warzone timeline. If people havent realized by now, zombies, campaign and the story of warzone are no longer seperated and exist within 1 timeline
To me, Origins ending invokes the feeling of mystery, like "hmm, if everything up until now was fake, I could only imagine what the real stuff is gonna be like..."
I know we're never getting that Great War map, but I'm still holding out for Zombies character packs in the shop. Ever since Cold War, I've mainly played zombies for the revamped gameplay, and would love to see like a Primis or Ultimis operator pack with limited dialogue for interactions (obv nothing map or story specific, just for grabbing perks or pack, or like opening a door)
At the end of BO1, I had arguments with my friends. I was the only one with the foresight to see that zombies wasn't over. The rest of them were like, "They blew up the earth. There's no more zombies. They'll start on a new mode for the next game." Guess who's still right more than 10 years later. Ha.
Goated moment
Bo3 is 9years old so it is over 10
@@blacklight683 They said "more than 10 years later", that usually means over 10 years...
Zombies will NEVER be over. For one simple reason.
Zombies brings a lot of money to Microsoft. They will never let their cashcow go
@@raven75257to this guy's Friends credit, before bo1 was MW2 that had survival and after was MW3, also with survival. Zombies was by no means a set in stone mode. It hadn't reached that level yet, i remember the multiplayer sweats kinda used to make fun of the zombies players, that's how different of a time It was for call of duty and for the world in general when COD was truly the biggest game there was (unlike now that the competition Is extremely fierce).
I think it’s cool that someone finally acknowledges how frustrating the ending to origins was. I think they handled it well for most of that story but at the time it felt like fnaf level story telling. Ultimately I think blundell didn’t know where to take the story and did his best to try to work around the fact that the world in the original universe is essentially destroyed.
People have always acknowledged how frustrating it is.
It's funny you say that, I think FNAF and CoD Zombies exist in a very similar storytelling niche; essentially, they're both the narrative equivalent of junk food: they're not nutritious (have no meaningful moral or message or character arc), but they're tasty (fun and satisfying). Which is fine, there's room for that kind of storytelling in our lives.
Both stories exist to satisfy the innate pleasure we get from a series of events, and the lore (and mystery) that builds up around those events. It's part of why I love both; _most_ stories I enjoy have some meaningful unifying idea, or a character that grows in a relatable way, or otherwise a message (good or bad) to convey. So it's nice to have these stories that are, in essence, a collection of fun action figures, as opposed to deep characters.
@@Mega-Brick completely agree. Alot of that is because both games started off in similar places. Both were made essentially for fun with no story in mind. After it was successful then there was a demand for story so they wrote the story as they went. I think the only difference is that Scott cawthon cared so much about the story for so long that he only ever retconned one thing prior to sister location. I think the team behind zombies more or less cared about the story to the extent that the story could create cool maps.
@@Mega-Brickthe problem is they keep on ending the story over and over again. Resurrecting it just to shoot it down again. But don’t worry they can just use the multiverse to keep it going, it gets tiring and over-explains itself to the point it’s not interesting anymore. I think Origins is a fun map but ruined the mystery in the story by trying to explain itself.
me personally i found origins to be an excellent ending. It left a perfect amount of info to setup for bo3's story, without going overboard with it, very unlike everything recently
The problem with the non- treyarch games endings is because they were setting up for a continuation without anticipating the Activision might shut their idea down
On the how Nikolai could have handled his death without traumatizing Samantha:
He could have easily asked her to pour him a glass of what the others took.
"Samantha, could you pour me some wine?"
"Why?"
"Because I cannot do it myself."
Samantha grabs a bottle and pours some into a cup and hands it to Nikolai.
Nikolai pats Samantha on the head as he toasts to Eddie.
"To you both, the bravest of us all.
The portals opens and Sam and Eddie walk through it, Eddie tries to look back at Nikolai but Sam keeps him looking forward.
As the world begins to fade, Nikolai goes and takes a seat next to his friends and takes a sip as he rests his eyes one final time.
@@satoukazuma5958 Treyarch should hire you as a writer.
One last drink.
Wait really…. Seriously… how could you, dude!
You really went with “a glass of wine”, fucking WINE! If homeboy’s drinking anything, no matter which NilokI we’re talking; pour that man some VODKA!!!!
@@DoomReaper115 I mean vodka would be more fitting for, perhaps, Ultimis Nikolai, but Gorad Krovi makes Nikolai seem like he gives it up (throws away his counter's bottle).
Also most of what the others drank looks red, so I went with wine.
A more fitting ending, if you ask me..
This is one of the best/funniest zombies commentary video I’ve seen in so long. Highly entertained throughout the whole thing💯
Same, the amount of dark humor satisfied me through the whole thing.
Same, I feel like everyone just rolls along with the bs storyline they pump out! Thanks for all the laughs
Honest to god it was entertaining all the way and that ending killed me especially with the liberty falls cutscene revealed. Our boy richtofen is back
To be honest I’ve never liked how the story changed from a nazi experiment gone wrong to a multiversal battle between aliens to take over Agartha or whatever it was. Once the story took itself seriously every single aspect of zombies just worsened as a whole.
Yeah I still don’t understand how the original crew, which is pretty much a meme, became into a serious story 12 year olds could follow
The idea that the story went from a group of walking stereotypes of WW2 soldiers to serious people fighting for the future of the planet is hilariously dumb. It makes zero sense and is why I completely believe Blundell is a complete hack who thinks he’s smarter than he is.
Prior to him the zombies story was crazy people doing crazy shit and making mistakes that doom the world and how people interact with that world, and then he comes into the series it turns into the good guys trying to get the of the bad guys, it goes from something with interesting and fun ideas into the typical bad vs good, just pathetic
@@Johaufs Based. That is exactly what I thought once BO3 rolled around. If anything the whole plot follows the classic archetype of a capeshit story involving world-ending threats and these so called heroes (that were meant to be taken as you said, a comedic stereotype of ww2 soldiers)
@@c0smicc4nc3r4 You want 12 year olds to play nazi zombies?! WTF
I understand the critic but where would you go with the story after Moon
i adore your humor and narration omg i needed this 😭
With Black Ops 4’s ending, it was just getting things over with. I think they needed to give up. There was literally no other way. And I thought it was a very emotionally impactful end, especially when it’s up to the player the let Samantha and Eddie walk to the light while you hear the characters you played as for a decade recite what they wanted in life. But the way the game lead up to this conclusion was sloppy. All the plot points that lead up to this were dropped or rushed. That’s the big issue.
What? Man they could of done so much more but peiple woukd rather ignore other people's ideas so they stay up at the top...seriously there was so many ideas from others they could of ran with...and bo4 wasn't so bad, it was how it came out was horrible and how they first started the "buy skins for guns" shtick in cod. Seriously so many ideas so many weird, fun, serious etc attempts could of been made but they wanted to to with the military ideas which is lame in zombies
It's very fitting for a gamemode about surviving as long as possible (which was also represented in the characters' ploy with the cycle and everything) to have this ultimate ending of "we need to give up and not survive."
It’s a shit ending no matter how you try to prop it up.
@@DiddlePantsFTW as soon as you bring the multiverse and time loops in lore, destroying said multiverse is the only way a time loop can end. write a better ending if you are such a good writer
@@mustafakemalataturk1273there where options for better endings. Following your logic, bo4 shouldn't even have happened.
The ending of bo4 contradicts the whole Aether storyline
The reason why Call of the Dead or Tag was used because symbolically it's where the original 4 first met and were brought together after they killed Pablo by "mistake." It's where you can say the crew really got their start and having it end where it started I think is nice.
I didn't think abt that lol poor Pablo I remember when that map came out listening to the radios and imagining a 5th crew member and the kind of lines he would have hahaha
Also, call of the dead's legacy is with the celebrity cast, which include George Romero. The same George Romero who's considered to be the essential godfather of zombie stories in media, the idea of the dead coming to life with a hunger for flesh, yadda yadda, and the tribute to him in the map is indicative of that- it's ending where things began in a more metaphorical sense too.
I think the originally planned Great War map would have been a far better ending, but I think that Call of the Dead isn't the worst thing that could have happened and there is some symbolism to it.
*Oh ya.. the Mexican who got killed.. like when Russman was the only 1 who died before bein brought back.. cod like a mug..*
It's clear the writers just made it up as they went along. It became such a messy storyline that became impossible to follow. It went downhill hard once it abandoned the zombies being the main threat and introduced the multiverse and aliens and such.
Even by their own admission, Treyarch was just making it up as they went and using community ideas to progress the plot. The problem is when they abandoned the charm of uncovering conspiracies and such by going the Lovecraftian cosmic horror route. You know, a different style of horror entirely
Nah, Black Ops 3 was the peak of the mode as far as character depth and story went, I would say that they fell off when the Zombies team lost the ability to focus on one game at a time, ie Bo4
Welllll blundell had a plan for bo4 while making bo3 wasnt fully realized and jimmy zelinski didnt really know how to continue the story from moon, but blundell put a lot of tbought into things
I feel like moon was the peak, them nuking the earth and Samantha switching with richtofen was INSANE for the time
@@sslingo absolutely. Moon was peak for the story. Then bo2 the story kind of plummeted but the ending worked ok with buried. Then there was origins...
Just the opening and then the follow up on the joke *chef's kiss*
I was deeply offended with that 911 joke...
Than I start howling as the second one hit...
old as fuck joke but still gold
also nice char zaku I think
One problem I have with the whole thing is that by destroying the blood vials on the younger Richtofen, the Richtofen that's lived through the cycle ensures he can't exist. The moment the vials were abandoned, the cycle should've unraveled because the crew should've ceased to exist. Even with Monty propping up the cycle - it's only allowed to exist because of those blood vials.
I had thought of this too. The events of Botd are suppose to take place between Zetsubou No Shima and Gorod Krovi. If Post Revelation Richtofen destroyed the blood vials, this alters the events that lead up to Revelations. So this should technically mean that Post Rev Richtofen shouldn't exist due to the events of Revelations never occurring. It's a grandfather paradox.
However... Post Revelations Richtofen had consumed the blood vials, which specifically protect him from yhe effects of paradoxes. Monty mentions this as he's questioning how the Primis Crew are still there, as they technically shouldn't exist
@@doctorjordanb.dankerson1624 This would actually be a grandfather's paradox, of a grandfather's paradox - cancelling each other out and giving the cycle a definite end and beginning, the exact thing that grandfather paradoxes cannot have.
Because the original cycle is already a grandfather's paradox. Monty sent them back in time in Revelations; but they had already sent back in time from the very beginning.
That's exactly why you never add time travel to your story. It's incredibly difficult to make time travel work, and in 99% of cases it only makes the story worse
“Saying you’re a cod zombies fan is a lot like saying you’re a fan of the twin towers”
Subbed
Same. Turned on the bell when he said “God hates Quitters but she hate PS3 BO3 more”
That’s what got me too. Speaking as a before the towers fell kind of guy
@@elijahmugrage im more of a post-tower enjoyer
@@TBeat you need prayer.
@@elijahmugrage there ain’t a god in this realm that could help with that
1:58 and then the second one hit.... I lost it 🤣
Also Great Theory about Samantha's Voice (American when Pure, German when corrupted) but the only reason she had a American accent in Origins is because at the time they didn't have the original Samantha Voice actor so they got another one (that could also explain why in the Origins trailer her voice sounds corrupted since they didn't have the voice at the moment).
Also because of not getting voice actors in time yet again is the reason Dead of the night was a DLC map.
Jason has said that there is a storyline reason why Samantha has a American accent in Origins
Jason also made shit up as he went along. The new director of the zombies storyline who worked under Blundel said as such. They just didn't have the voice actor at the time.
Ya but didn't he tease us about the red zombie eyes but it ended up meaning nothing. One of the devs was just like "make the eyes red" and they went with it no reason
@@ryanstover8433 source?
@DiddlePantsFTW inconsistencies with the storytelling. That and the recent interview with the new lead developer on Bo6, let me see if I can find a link for ya.
I think thematically the BO4 story is incredible, the mobsters breaking the cycle causing the timeline to change and primis to get stuck on alcatraz resulting in the whole cycle ending and the universe ending. The way it was executed however, having to share the spotlight with chaos and being solely on remastered maps feels incredibly lackluster.
I really really wish that BO4's ending had the originally planned Great War map, same with the scrapped Chaos story ending which seemed to have possibly been Atlantis.
On the note of them already having the assets in BO4 - Nuketown, Call of the dead (Lighthouse), and Mob of the dead (Alcatraz) were all used in blackout’s maps.
I feel you on the BO4 ending, I hated it when I originally saw it back then. Saw it as justification for me not continuing that game past Ancient Evil...
But back looking back now, seeing the fact that budgets got slashed, the game was pushed to release early, that Activision didnt just break their promise to let Treyarch do more then one year of content but also forced them to make Cold War, learning they can no longer have a main zombies cast but they have to use operators in the future...
I cant help but feel like the ending wasn't just trying to end the story, but to express their frustration with everything going on at the studio at the time. They tried to find a way, but found there was none and burned it all like Nikolai doing the best they could.
I may not like it, but... I can at least respect it.
I think the originally planned Great War map would have been a far better ending, but I can understand with all the problems that happened why they couldn't do it.
@@Kelis98*But they respect it 🫢..*
From what i remember everyone hated origins ending but not the actual map itself. From day 1 ive always heard mostly good things about origins. Only bad thing being the ending.
My personal grievance with zombies that I don't ever remember seeing Zombies UA-camrs touch on back in the day was that simply put, 3Arc had no consistent direction for their story whatsoever.
From WaW through BO1, I could see the progression of the story and its characters. Richtofen's goals and his manipulation of the other 3 characters via in-game quotes or radios, why the Germans wanted to harness 115 and the U.S. following suit in the arms race (technically going back as far WW2 in zombies canon via a Der Riese radio asking for more funds), why the crew traveled to each map, and everything remaining mostly grounded.
From Bo2 onwards, it was a shit show of them leaving too many plotholes and then "fixing" them after several maps. Jumping all of the place and different crews with no cohesive story or connections other than Victus and Primis Richtofen. And even then, its never stated what happened to the OG crew or why they couldn't stop Richtofen and Maxis themselves after Moon. They can obviously go back to Earth. They tried "fixing' all this and more with Origins ending being a "play date", panicked when people didn't like it, and went the multiverse route to explain away any misconceptions and mistakes. Which is cheap and lazy. Sure you get more creative freedom as a writer and mao designer but its grating to have to seek out comics, morse codes, ciphers to understand this shit. I'm not getting graded on my Cod zombies knowledge so I'm not doing some HW for my hobby. A 1/3 of my hobby no-less.
You can Thank Blundell for that Multiverse crap. The BO2 Destroyed Earth Story felt rushed. I honestly feel like Jimmy ended it with Buried cuz he knew he was gonna leave once his final map was completed and decided to finish his story in a very anticlimactic way. Then there's the current broken Treyarch storyline.
The bo2 story is so bad we went from ww2 - cold War space race conspiracy theories arms race type shi to ppl in 2025 eating zombie flesh and hearing voices... Ok
@lookatmyzombies9377 at least it's a somewhat consistent story. The New story has way too much stuff they haven't explained that completely destroys the narrative. How is Chaos cannon to dark Aether if we never get any answers other than that one scientist knowing Allister and Allister gets murdered by the Nazis for the Device. Also why are their difference Gods and demons? Also who's even controlling the Zombies? The order, those gods and demons? The Apothicons? (MWZ made cannon) or the forsaken? At least folks who eat zombies flesh that's infused 115 makes sense why they would hear them
@@CactusInsane Chaos is very much an alternate form of it, Not congruent with the actual Chaos story(pretty normal thing to do overall) the Gods and Demons within The Dark Aether existed within it before the Multiverse collapsed in Tag, in fact the collapse of the multiverse is what even brought to the residents of The Dark Aether that there were other worlds.
Who's in control throughout the Dark Aether story is actually really easy(and honestly might be the easiest it's been since BO3, in Vanguard it's Kortifex using his bond with Van List, and in Cold War it's The Forsaken, and in MWZ it's The Entity.
Although I am curious one thing, What do you mean by the Apothicons being made canon in MWZ(which tbf they technically always have been as Dark Aether is a sequel to Aether), It could be something in a story cutscene that i've yet to see but as far as i'm aware we have no evidence that they're still kicking around.
Nothing you really said actually destroys the narrative though, at worst it just shows they have more stuff to explore, granted that's to be expected given Cold War was focused mainly on the rivalry between Requiem, Omega Group and how The Forsaken is playing on that conflict, Judging from what we've seen I wouldn't be shocked to find out BO6 is gonna be focusing a bit more on the Dark Aether itself.
@missionofsin3360 the final ending cutscene of MWZ shows the Shadowman has returned and took Maxis daughter
They explained the origins ending, the ending is the good soul of richtofen and samantha in agartha in the house of dr monty. Also idk who was saying origins was bad i vividly remember people loving this map
At the time tho, it was never clear what was going on, and if you pay attention he does say this map was considered the golden days of zombies
This map is considered good now, but, man, people were PISSED at the ending at the time.
Pretty much everyone thought it was "it's a dream!" ending
The map is good, but at the time, and now the hype died, this ending was baaaad, the name was origins but nothing was explained, and it started a whole new story, Zombies before and after BO3 are totally different because of this
@@raven75257nope. Maybe story wise it's poorly received especially after bo3 but literally everyone loved at least getting the staffs and being op for doing a fairly annoying task. Also the chronicles version has changes that make it more frustrating like panzer being tanky.
BO4 should just focused on Chaos. 3/4 maps are genuinely strong wit the BO4 system (2 in my top 10 of all time). Aether story is even worse/incoherent
In my opinion the story died as soon as it stopped being about a German super soldier experiment gone wrong. The story was at its best when it seemed like the outbreak and where they came from was the result of Germans using 115 to experiment with teleportation and creating unkillable soldiers. The more grounded waw was how I wish they continued it.
the 4 million cuts back to earth exploding isnfucking killing me im subbing immediately LMFAOOOO
The zombies story line is incredibly tired and convoluted at this point they need to just start fresh.
They did with Cold War.
@@lucast7092lol, came to say this as well 😂
@@lucast7092 yeah aside from Sam and Eddie the dark aether story is mostly it’s own thing
@@lucast7092 barely, what we need is a completely fresh new story without any connection whatsoever to the dark aether or aether whatsoever, no Samantha no Eddie no connections to the previous story.
@@shadewolf0075 when you change your book to chapter 2, is it a completely different story, or still a part of the same book?
The longer it’s been the more that I think that the revelations ending was actually pretty good.
I think it was good but it was also like "buy our next game" and you can only pull that one so many times before your budget gets cut and ope you have to half-ass your real ending now
Great script and humor. Hope the algorithm picks up this channel 🙏🏽
Did you just compare my childhood’s greatest nostalgia to a child’s cartoon 😂 great video!! Hopefully BO6 brings back an amazing storyline
have we learned nothing from this video?
Bo6 is gonna be mid
@@juanyeat859Lol
Hot take. The narrative issues with zombies is half the reason we love it. My jank games wouldn’t be complete without jank writing
45:55
That's why I hate the end in bo4, because the whole theme of the Aether story is about finding a way and not giving up.
How does the story end? They give up? What is here being communicated?
When everything is against you, give up because you cant do anything either way?
What was the journey for?
Why I liked this story so much, is because Richtofen new that whatever he does, he is not going safe the universe and live through it, but he still tries.
Richtofen is scared as hell of dying and thats that's why he "created" the blood vials.
At the start he only planned to safe himself, throughout bo3 he gets attached to his crew, grows and wants to safe them too. He makes the conscious decisions to get them the blood vials too.
The Vials, the reason the Cycle exist in first place, where "created" out of a egotestical desire.
In my opinion the perfect ending for his character arc would have been that he accept his death and through this acceptance and a sacrifice making it possible for his friends to live. To give his brothers the life he could never achieve.
His character journey would have went full circle. From saving himself, to trying to safe others, to giving his life for others (and the universe).
And through that, bo3 wouldnt have been filler. Because it literally is now, with the ending we have.
The way you summed up the themes of the story is perfect. Bo3 actually had a pretty good message of "always finding a way", but then bo4 pulls a 180 and tries to pull a "its time to let it go" storyline. So which is it? Keeping fighting or letting go?
This to me is all about perspective. I don’t think BO4’s ending is about “giving up”, I think it’s about passing the torch. The journey of Aether is going through the past, revisiting these places we’ve known for years. It’s all about sending them off. We are perpetually looking for the answer to how these things end, we weren’t happy with the “always find a way” ending of Revelations, which very much so mirrors BO4. Rev is going through this amalgamation of what has come before in a “look how far we’ve come” sort of way, we are doing the same in BO4, but instead it’s a “we’re back here again”. We needed to put it all to bed. We NEEDED to look to the future. The Primis crew and the Ultimis crew don’t give up at all. They realise it’s time to look to the future, that’s what Eddie and Sam are. Letting their hopes fly in the wind as these two walk in to their new world. They’ll never get to live out those dreams, but they let go of them so that others can do what they couldn’t. I think it’s rather beautiful.
@@owentypebeat2449 I get u, but could you explain me what purposes their Journey even had? "Giving up" immediately would have been the way better choice. What is being communicated, is really dark and depressing. What I don't mind in storys but it doesn't fit primis narrative at all. It's a 180.
Also the majority of Primis and ultimis didn't have a say to their deaths, they died without consent.
I don't think it is about passing the torch, because nikolai wanted the kids to live in a Multiverse without any zombies. That's why he mass "genocided" the multiverse 💀. Anyways, his sacrifice and all the other sacrifices get invalidated through cold war.
Because the sacrifice leaded to nothing, zombies and eldritch gods are back.
But for sure, the ending sequence was beautiful af. But if you think about it, the ending is really bad
@@UnknownUser-bk2kf The point of the journey was to keep on fighting. You go and go and go until you can’t anymore, then when it’s time, you let go, trying to make the future a better place. And if they gave up, then that ‘better place’ wouldn’t have happened. Not gonna sit here and defend Cold War story wise, I think it’s kind of bad, but it’s just natural for things to happen again, it’s all about how we get past it this time around, that’s what matters. Terrible things have happened forever, it’s just part of what life is, it makes sense for more bad shit to happen, but what’s important is that in the end things will be better, and you keep trying towards that end goal.
@@owentypebeat2449 I think u r missing something. There was a better place, the cycle isn't really a cycle. In those universes (bo3), eddie, Samantha an the rest lived a happy normal life. In contrast to bo4/CW everybody "lives" and is doesnt need to worry about zombies.
And fighting for the sake of a better future without it ever happening is from a narrative pov rlly weak
"For once he's behind A SNIPER SCOPE" FOR JFK IS DIABOLICAL😂
Zombies ended with Revelations. Everything after is the writings of someone post lobotomy.
To be honest it ended with me in Black Ops 2 buried Richtofen ending. That was the last map and ending I truly felt satisfied with. I hated Black Ops 3 during the majority of its time being in the spotlight and even after Cold War and going back and playing it I still hate it I feel like Black Ops 3 in Origins started the downfall of zombies
Replace “Revelations” with “Buried” and this comment is accurate
@@PaisiosOfGOAOAopinion
@@TheUnstableNutcaseNo
The beauty of the many endings is you can choose where to stop accepting the future as canon
What frustrates me the most besides the endings is how little Samantha’s character got. Sure, she was in control of the zombies for two games and a half and she was with us at the end but we genuinely got little of her. We never got a true boss fight against her, you rarely see her interact with any of the crews, hell we only have like four cutscenes with her in it and only two of them involve the true, corrupted Samantha.
For a character as important as her, it is a massive misstep to not put more story emphasis on her.
And it’s even more frustrating that the version of her that does get a lot of character moments and screentime is her adult self which was uninteresting as hell until she got her powers back after being stuck in the aether which she is again for what’s been like about five years or so.
And given how tame they’ve made her even after she got her powers, I don’t think she’ll come back corrupted and we get to explore that. She’ll come back mentally damaged and probably be out of commission which I hope isn’t true given the fact that Ava, her daughter, saw a ghostly vision of her that came out of the dark aether briefly with a dress and a cloak similar to the one she wore as a child.
Little thing I want to say about Der Eisendrache. It's not Origins 2, but more Origins but good.
DE has almost every thing we love about Origins with the benefit that it doesn't feel mandatory to go for the bows. You can play that map as either a golden age map or a classic survival map. And that's why I personally love it.
And have grown to dislike Origins. That map the literal definition of insanity...
True, i had probably my most fun ever playing a no staffs, mostly ballista only (until it got weak) game training in the crazy place… yet I still had to take more than a few mins in the setup phase to unlock the map/generators.
The big thing requiring staff/bow is the panzer and the de panzer is much more threatening ( not in a fun way imo ) without the bows. Making origins easier to play without going for staffs compared to de
@@yaboiferret8681 On DE you can use the electric trap in the middle to deal with him as well. It's something a lot of people forget. I did too until you said how annoying the panzer is to deal with lol.
@@NorthEevee I don’t find the death ray consistent. It is possible to mess up and for the best results you need to be at the death ray while the panzer spawns. I’ve probably played more origins than de but I’ve planned an absolute ton of both. I can’t reasonably see this as a skill issue, the de panzer is just problematic. The origins panzer is deadly if you get caught lacking but genuinely I don’t see it as a threat in the slightest because he’s designed very fairly. Adding shock charges to the best designed boss in the franchise is the biggest middle finger I’ve ever seen. I like de but find it heavily overrated and it’s purely because of the panzer. Great map shit boss
@@NorthEevee for the record I mean no disrespect. If you like de that’s great. It’s not a bad map but personally the panzer ruins it for me. Plus origins is my favorite so I feel obligated to white knight that shit
I remember when the world building was piecing together who a dismembered arm that’s attacked to a lever belonged to. Finding out it belonged to a corpse was so cool. Now we got Medusa and Cthulhu lmao
For me, the main problem with the mode is that they did not have a defined story and they did it on the fly, something that did affect a little, something that they changed in cold war with a narrative that already has a final or at least a clear idea of how to carry everything
Honestly this is a issue that plagues most stories. By the ending, pretty much all the questions have been answered, no more threads are being weaved. The mystery and discovery is what made the storyline so great. Even during Black Ops 4 which I wasn’t a fan of them continuing the story was still able to give us that intrigue with Blood of the Dead’s twist ending. However, even as a long time fan of the story since WaW, I was way more interested in the Chaos story. It mixed a lot of the concepts from Blundell BO2 maps and BO3 with the more conspiracy theory inspired story of WaW through BO1. I personally felt that Revelations was a good enough ending to the story. The characters going back in time to create the loop was a good enough sacrifice to me. They die for the better tomorrow. Black Ops 4 continuing the story just felt like they didn’t trust us to care for a new set of characters. Which is kinda proven by how recent games don’t even use dedicated crews anymore. Chaos takes the blame for the poor state of BO4 when it was really the aether story. Trying to get people invested in a new story while the story we have been following for years is getting a “true ending” is nearly impossible. Even Treyarch understands the lost potential of that storyline by adding Scarlet’s father into the new Dark Ether storyline. I genuinely feel like zombies would be in a much better place if Treyarch had more faith in the zombies community being open to a new cast of characters.
The thing with Treyarch today, they give up too easily on things. They have the habit of abandoning stuff for the pass 6 years if the community doesn't like their ideas.
Wait wait wait, hol up. You're telling me Allistair Rhodes APPEARS IN THE DARK AETHER STORYLINE????? I'm asking this as someone who has only completed the ees for Cold War and Vanguard, but not MWIII Zombies yet. Nor have I really kept up with all the hype trailers for BO6. So Chaos does continue after all?????
@joshuacapron8358 Chaos is now used as a starting point of this new timeline now. It goes from Chaos BO4-Vanguard Zombies-Cold War-BO6-MWZ . Only problem with it is that they never explained nor state what happen to Scarlett or Diego. Just that Allister died by the hands on the Nazis and the Cult managed to give them the device. What device? They never go in details about it and it's never Explain in CW what happen to all the demons and gods from Vanguard. The Whole New Timeline is more screwed up than the OG one.
@@CactusInsane Wow. Just, wow. Here I was, thinking he died from being turned to stone by Medusa, but I guess he got unpetrified off screen just for the Nazis to kill him. I'm assuming that info comes from audio logs in Vanguard or Cold War? And if Chaos really does tie into Dark Aether, then it begs so many questions now. What then happened to not just the gods from Vanguard, but also all the Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, and Nordic mythological influence found in Chaos, along with all the Vampires and Werewolves that Dead of the Night made clear exist in that universe? Let me guess: they're not going to explain those either....
@@joshuacapron8358According to Audio logs, character quotes, from Vanguard and a bit of Cold War. Basically at some point, Allister destroyed the Artifact in France 1918. Basically the events of Origins happen again just in "Chaos". Some point afterwards the events of WAW zombies take place again except instead of group 935 its the Order aiding the Nazis informing them of the God's and demons. Allister gets captured and killed once they find the source of new power at Shi No Numa for the Device. Again wtf is the device and how is it more powerful than the Artifact from Chaos!? Again they don't explain any of this stuff in Cold War or MWZ. But if you wanna hear something else confusing?MWZ confirmed that The Apothicons are still a thing in the Dark Aether. Thus Comfirming my theory that Nikolais plan was stupid. But yeah they don't really explain anything about these potholes. Even though they said this is supposed to be a new story and timeline😅😂
samantha's accents changing is just an audible inconsistency, it doesn't have to do with her being corrupt or not, it was a change they made in BO2 because it was supposed to be "a new beginning" but since it makes to sense for her to have an american accent they switched it back to a german accent, although it is an interesting way to look at it
What upsets me the most is how far they’ve deviated from their original formula with new zombies. Like I’m decently excited for BO6 but nowhere near as excited as I would be if they ACTUALLY stuck to the core fundamentals like Kevin Drew said they did. Also, Activision Shanghai built most of the last 2 zombies maps in bo4, not treyarch. That explains some things about them.
I like the ending, it makes sense and seems like what Nikolai would do. Sacrifice himself and friends to close all the bad endings, so that Samantha and Eddie could hopefully have a good ending
I agree. It really was the best possible outcome.....until Cold War released and gave us the Dark Aether storyline where no, Samantha doesn't get to finally rest and live a normal life, but must still deal with Zombies and her Aether powers and Element 115. *sigh* Activision's gotta make their money somehow....
@@joshuacapron8358 yep. The creative bank is running low, I wouldn’t be surprised if this universes Nikolai, Takeo, Richthofen, and Dempsey have a part in BO6. But honestly it’s not a big deal to me, I just want round based zombies again🤣. The marketing is going hard rn tho
@@bigtexas517 Lol they'll return with a twist similar to Graves still being alive in MWIII. "You see, we weren't actually in that multiverse we deleted"
@@joshuacapron8358 couldn’t even be mad at that point🤣 I would just laugh at how ridiculous it would be
nah
the ending to bo4 sucked
its clear they only did that ending because they didnt have a budget for the great war map.
people who defend it like you are idiots
this is an incredible video, both hilarious and informative. i sincerely hope it will have a continuation since i assumed you will continue talking about cold war at the end
My greatest gripe story-wise, is the fact that MOTD is not it's own thing entirely.
It reminded my brother and I of one of our favorite game series called "The Suffering" and it was just so cool to me how unique this map was.
And then they screwed it up entirely by making BOTD. I think BOTD is an okay map but it just chaps my ass that they connected everything together like that.
The only reason why tag works as an ending is simple because of the name of the map, tag de toten or day of the dead, with it capping off the fist map, night of the dead
Someone else mentioned here that it's where the og 4 meet. It's where Pablo was accidentally killed. I'm referring to the radios in call of the dead
There's another layer to it, cause "Tag" (day) and "Nacht" (Night) are not the only opposites, but "Toten" (The dead) and "Untoten" (The undead) are also opposites in a different way.
Bro they obviously made all endings seem final because they didn't know if they'd even get to continue the story. It's supposed to seem like a definitive end while also giving them some wiggle room in the next part if they get to continue it. They most likely had an idea of how to continue from origins but since it was the last dlc they also had to do a fakeout just in case.
That opening statement is insane, You got my attention and I've rotted my brain.
The only similarities I can find between origins and der eisendrache is that there's 4 wonder weapons...
Seriously?
@@DiddlePantsFTWtrench warfare ≠ castle
Both also have the Panzer zombie bosses.
My theory on why they were late to escape Alcatraz that weasel managed to break the cycle in this instance on the bridge
15:43 idk man i always saw people loving origins as a map, but hating the ending
This was hilarious, I can feel an inspiration of Scott the Woz in there but it’s 100% your own style. Instant sub.
And then they did pretty much nothing of note with Samantha in Cold War and now she has a test tube baby daughter. :/
Surrogate.
not even 3 seconds in, what a hell of a way to start a video LMAO
Something people don’t talk about enough is how beautiful it was to have a ww2 American Russian Japanese and nazi work together and somehow made us like the nazi
The algorithm has smiled upon you today.
Also opening with a 9/11 joke, 10/10, instant sub
Dude im not gonna lie id love to talk to you about how much i loved the BO4 ending you seem like you'd have some really interesting counter points of what I've typcially heard
Unexpected quality. Planning to make more videos of zombies?
Finally someone that like the bo3's endong, i also feel itd the best way to end their story, a bitter but satisfying end. Also the joke hit really hard, just as hard as the second plane
I personally was okay with the moon ending. Out of all of them it is still the most satisfying to me. (If you cut out all the shit the made up to make it work after the fact)
I was so into Zombies back in the day. I mean DEEP. I was looking up all the real life influences of many aspects of zombies from WaW-BO2. I even pieced together a bunch of the clues in BO1 and predicted the Moon map. But the Origins ending made me lose all interest in it. And haven't bought a CoD game since.
The only thing that got me nearly as interested was the Chaos Storyline in BO4 which I tried after getting it for free on PS+. And I'm not even gonna get started on that one.
the meta level 911 jokes and alternative game references were fantastic, instant subscription
9/11 out the gate then the double down. Bro I love you. SUBSCRIBED
Watching this a month after it came out is crazy. You mention the fact Samantha sounds more German as she gets more corrupted/traumatised. In the Liberty Falls intro, the exact same thing happens to Richtofen
Great video !!, very enjoyable and for the most part pretty accurate to how I remember zombies panning out over the years, smiled and laughed alot to 😂😂🧟♂️
25:25 well you’re in for a treat with this one with all the leaks that have come out
I've honestly always considered my own video essay on how the endings have progressively gotten worse and yet you've captured this better than I ever could. Especially with BO4. I'm also realizing what day I'm watching and commenting on this. We've come full circle I think.
I have no idea who you are, but I am so thankful the algorithm graced me with one of your videos. You are genuinely SO funny and you handled this topic SO well!
The one thing I will say though, is that as shitty as the previous games endings were, at least they left some kind of mystery still intact and were executed well. EVERYTHING from BO4 onward ending-wise has been horseshit. Poor execution, poor writing, poor conclusions. ZOMBIES DESERVED BETTER!
Aaanyways, I subscribed to your channel and am eagerly awaiting your next upload. Good stuff, dude!
hey man keep it up, this video is amazing and your humor is the exact type i enjoy in these types of videos
I'm only 4 seconds in and LMAO what a start. This is about to be a ride
Origins ending was so unsatisfying and confusing for the sake of being confusing
BO4 underperformed and as a result they cut funding and moved on to the next game. If I remember correctly I read that the last two Aether maps were actually outsourced to a smaller Activision studio. It’s a shame because we could’ve gotten more original maps.
What was it Raven software? Vicarious visions? Those are some sub-Activision studios they used to work on destiny too
BLOOD OF THE DEAD had such an amazing part of adding into the storyline, HOWEVER… that EE has to be hands down one of the WORST in terms of tedious and frustrating if you can’t set it up properly. I remember on launch week having a near 4 hour match because the EE was actively being discovered, only to FAIL and retry it a few more times before doing it. I’ve only completed it one more time since launch 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
I just remember booting up black ops 3 for the first time, excited to see what shadows of evil would bring and going “oooo ok 1920’s-30’s theme cool…. Wait, are those aliens?? Is this still a zombies mode?” After that I just knew the story took a complete 180 from what we had had with the Nazis and stuff
This is such a well written video wtf
Huge smile on my face seeing the Yoteslaya cameo
Can I just say no cap no lie me & drew predicted the ending to origins all the way back in kino...
When you go into either version of Samantha's room you see a wooden diorama or play set of Der Reise with shrunk down models of Ulutimus on the floor like they are toys.
One of us goes, "I wonder if the story is just Sam playing a game?"
Earned a sub just because I really like your sense of humour; it feels so natural and not corny.
"and the the second one hits..." TOOK ME CLEAN OUT I WASNT READY 😂😂😂😂😂
Thank you for this. I'm 32 and I did a lot of UA-cam content through bo1-3 and this video finally gave me closure.
I was surprised how mush I laughed during this video. Your funny definitely better then most in this genre of content.
I have never heard it more properly explained how Origins made me feel as an autistic child who was obsessed with zombies. I vividly remember everyone arguing that Origins was THE beginning of the Ultimis characters when it contradicts EVERYTHING from before. I dont think i ever got that angry about this stuff since omg
they did chaos a second time
BO3 was like when the one tower had been hit but it’s been a while since that and your like “Well we still got this one sick ass tower still” then BO4 comes in and no more towers 😢
To me, the story started at Nacht and ended at Moon. I was 15 when BO2 came out and spent the summer before doing odd jobs to make enough money to buy the hardened edition just for Nuketown zombies and boy, what a fucking disappointment.
I couldn't give a fuck about the Tranzit crew, mob was okay but Origins was the final nail in the coffin. The fact that they set it in WW1 with only 2 weapons from that war was retarded. Watching the trailer and seeing german soldiers with MP40s and STG44s was hilarious.
The amount of missing weapons is ridiculous. Especially in BO3 when they basically replace the Tommy gun with a weevil or something generic.
Mob of the dead is personally my second favorite map of all time but b02 is definitely a mixed bag
@@JagmasterGeneral12374bo2 zombies r terrible lmao mob was the only good map
Mob of the dead saved bo2 the game wouldve been so shit
I never hated origins, like the ending might be kinda mid but... the weapons, the alternate versions of our main cast, the vibes of a steampunk WW1 *chefs kiss*
“And for once he’s behind a sniper scope” my jaw never dropped so fast out of laughter😂
They did something extremely clever to set up the break in the paradox loop. They had the plane from Mob crash into the Giant. The Mobsters escaped they broke their time loop which had a butterfly effect causing the BO4 versions of the characters to be late to Alcatraz to break their time loop and to help the one mobster left behind to be free with the rest of them and to take down Brutus once and for all. I do think the ending still sucks especially for Victus who came back just to be erased which is super lame unless they come back in Cold War since they are just banished to the Dark Aether which is where our storyline is currently.
31:30 BO6 is hinting at the chaos storyline-!
I came to the comments just to say this lmao.
Maybe I'm just 'special', but I always interpreted the ending of Origins as being the Ultimis crew somehow traveling back in time and rescuing Samantha from Agartha and consequentially re-writing the timeline so that the prior storyline from WaW up to Buried never happened.
I think you’re forgetting that when BO2 came out, everyone hated Victis and was fucking stoked when Origins came out and brought back the original cast in some capacity. I think that’s a big reason as to why the Victis story ends at “richtofen and maxis duke it out for control and there’s a decision and we see nothing else”
It was always weird to me how the voice actor of dr monty never returned to bo4, im sure that and the budget cut made them close up the whole thing as simple as they could which is suoer disappointing
Real OGs remember the storyline before bo3, origins ending had people thinking it was all a game
Something kinda cool but overlooked about the bo4 zombies ending. While it was disappointing in some ways in bittersweet in other canonically it created our new current all in 1 warzone timeline. If people havent realized by now, zombies, campaign and the story of warzone are no longer seperated and exist within 1 timeline
This is the greatest explanation of cod zombies succinct just the information you need to know and with some comedy
To me, Origins ending invokes the feeling of mystery, like "hmm, if everything up until now was fake, I could only imagine what the real stuff is gonna be like..."
Crazy how chaos story is cannon now to bo6 and they are showing it love again, atleast hopefully they do and its not just the artifact and only that
AN OVER THE GARDEN WALL MENTION IN A COD ZOMBIES VID? Never thought I’d live to see the day lol
Bro this entire video was gasss lotta funny parts that made me laugh especially the ending 🥹it's not over yet there's still hope🎉
I know we're never getting that Great War map, but I'm still holding out for Zombies character packs in the shop.
Ever since Cold War, I've mainly played zombies for the revamped gameplay, and would love to see like a Primis or Ultimis operator pack with limited dialogue for interactions (obv nothing map or story specific, just for grabbing perks or pack, or like opening a door)
I really like your style, it's a Farcry from the usual cod zombies ytber style. Nice video!
you def deserve more subs, when i clicked on the video i thought you had at least 20k subs 10/10