The downfall of Treyarch's COD Zombies gameplay and mechanics

Source: Polygon

About a month ago, I covered the downfall of Treyarch's zombies storyline. How the story itself and the way it was told strayed from ambiguity and opted for a more cinematic experience. Coincidently, the simplicity of the story brought with it, the complexity of it's gameplay. Evolving from something as simple as sitting in a corner with your ray gun, to wearing armor plates, gathering 'loot', and spending a total of 50,000 points for Pack-A-Punch. Now, this is going to be bias against the complexity of the modern zombies gameplay. I understand this evolution was enjoyed by many (especially new players) and I can respect that. Unfortunately for me though, this complexity brought forth multiple problems with the gameplay loop and design as a whole.

I don't need a create-a-class system

The biggest and most noticeable change brought forth by Black Ops Cold War was the introduction of the create-a-class system. This was a feature implemented from multiplayers on full display. I know that a create-a-class system was previously in Black Ops 3 and 4 but it was never to this extent. In Cold War zombies, when you fully upgrade your create-a-class abilities, you are able to have 10 attachments for any choice of weapon you spawn in (amount varies from type of weapon). This is very over-powered as you can have fast mags which can act like Speed-Cola. They even went as far as giving you little boots for equipment/salvage drops. Since you can pick any weapon you want (if you have it unlocked of course), there really isn't any in-game strategy as you will most likely stick with the weapon you spawned in with. This leads into the problem with upgrading those weapons you spawn in with or find in the mystery box.

Upgrading weapons is a chore

Previously in older COD games, when you Pack-A-Punch a weapon it's the most powerful it can be. With Double Tap stacked on top of it, you got powerful very quickly. Later on in BO3's era, they did introduce AAT (Alternate Ammo Types) but for just 2500 points, it was pretty simple to get and keep getting.

A prominent design choice pulled right from Warzone and the Battle Royale genre was the weapon rarity system. In Black Ops Cold War, there are a total of five rarities. That being Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary, and Epic. While, for later rounds, it's great to keep upgrading your weapon to deal the proper damage to the increasing difficulty. However, for the most part, it happens too late as you can exfil starting on round 10 and every 5 rounds after. So, if you aren't leveling a specific weapon, why stay in the game when you can spawn in with another weapon you want?

Maps are not unique

I understand this is a bit of niche critique but the size and settings of the maps make for a boring experience. Take 'Die Machine' for instance, the starting room on that map is massive and with your rifle you spawned in with, there's no imminent danger or call to explore the rest of the map. This goes for every map released in Cold War's life cycle (except for Forsaken), the maps seem too open and matches just end up with you running in a circle until you decide to leave.

This also feeds into the settings of the maps, they are obviously built using Campaign assets but they structured them very similarly. They are all centered around military bases. Now, in other games, the ambiguity of the zombies story did allow for some crazy settings to be justified. We've been everywhere from France, Brazil and even the damn moon. For Cold War though, it just feels like they take the same military assets and placed them in each map offering no change of scenery.

It's just too easy

This may seem too subjective but everything we discussed about weapons, game design and map layouts all make for a super easy experience. If you can't tell already, I enjoy zombies maps and mechanics that put some pressure on the player. It's what makes older COD zombies game harder and that was fun (it still is).

I know that this take isn't blinded by nostalgia because, I've played modern zombies and find myself running back to past zombies experiences every time.