Welcome to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies. Coming to PS5 on October 25.
Purely focused on the round-based Zombies action coming to the game, the following Intel Barrage features extensive comms direct from the Treyarch Zombies Team, and includes a detailed gameplay overview and deep dive into all the pre-game preparations you can undertake, full details on what to expect when you’re engaging hordes of undead during a match, and a terrifying look at the dark bestiary of the undead currently haunting Terminus Island.
Warning: Light spoilers ahead
Please note that the contents of this blog include information about gameplay systems, enemy types, areas of the Terminus map, and other information that could be deemed as spoilers. Proceed at your own risk!
Terminus Overview: Outpost Escape, Philippine Sea
Located in the Philippine Sea is the remote Terminus Island complex. Historical data indicates a pre-WWII coal mining operator on the island, abandoned around 1932. Ten years later, Terminus became a forward U.S. Naval base. Mothballed until 1965, the CIA converted it into a Top-Secret outpost used for the detention of [REDACTED]. In 1984, [REDACTED]. In 1986, Project Janus took over the island, building a laboratory in the subterranean mining caves.
After Peck and Maya break the Requiem crew out of their prison cells, they soon learn this is a bio-research station for Project Janus. Your handlers are Peck and Strauss, and for the richest story experience, you’ll want to choose your Operator crew from Grigori Weaver, Elizabeth Grey, Mackenzie ‘Mac’ Carver, and Maya Aguinaldo – the dedicated crew of characters featured throughout Black Ops 6 Zombies’ storyline.
Get ready to play this round-based Zombies map at the launch of Black Ops 6 on October 25, along with the Liberty Falls map.
Liberty Falls Overview: Almost Hell, West Virginia
Footage from an incursion at a once-quaint, now-overrun West Virginian town also gives you the first glimpse at the second launch map. Seemingly the epicenter of a Dark Aether outbreak, chaos is crawling through Liberty Falls, with much of the local population now succumbing to the results of a second, simultaneous dimensional breach.
The essence of Zombies: gameplay overview
An Introduction to round-based gameplay
Black Ops 6 Zombies is purely focused on creating the finest, most rewarding round-based experience Treyarch has ever made. Many of the gameplay systems you’ll be reading about will be familiar to veteran Zombies players, while others are designed to grow the Zombies community, and allow newer players to explore more of the Main Quest more easily.
At its most basic level, one of the first Black Ops 6 round-based Zombies maps involves you (and optionally, up to three additional teammates) exploring and eventually breaking out of a maximum-security prison complex called Terminus Island, with waves (or “rounds”) of undead foes to dispatch as you discover and complete objectives.
Delve a little deeper, and you realize your chances of survival are greatly enhanced by adept avoidance of the crowds of wandering corpses as you line up your killing blows, and just as importantly, by managing the main currencies of the game: Essence and Salvage.
Zombimovement
With movement being redefined across the entirety of Black Ops 6, for the first time in Zombies, players can sprint, slide, and dive in any direction (forward, sidestepping, and backpedaling), seamlessly chaining combat maneuvers together, all with a full 360-degree range of motion. This is Omnimovement, and the extra dexterity this brings to your maneuvers is nothing short of game-changing.
As veteran players will attest to, using your dexterity is the key to dodging a crowd of incoming undead in a narrow play space, and perfecting Omnimovement allows a full range of action-hero stunts, whether it’s sprinting backward from the a horde, diving sideways through a window away from a mauling, or automatically mantling low fences or scenery thanks to Intelligent Movement (which you can optionally set to automatic) as you expertly circle-strafe your foes.
If you really want to see your new moves in action, try out the ability to switch from first- to third-person perspective (and the shoulder you’re watching while in third-person mode) for the first time in round-based Zombies! Check your settings to change perspectives on the fly at any time during a match.
Heads Up: Display Options
The Heads-Up Display (HUD) that appears on your screen is designed to offer deep customizable experiences, across almost all aspects of the interface.
Pre-game preparation
Augments: Customizing Perks, Ammo Mods, and Field Upgrades
Evolving from the Skill progression system in Black Ops Cold War, Augments provide a rich and innovative customization experience, allowing you to invest into research between matches, unlocking Augments for every Perk, Ammo Mod, and Field Upgrade in the game.
Weapons and Loadouts
Neutralizing the frothing undead requires more than harsh words and bravado. You’re fortunate to be able to count on an extensive armory from which to perfect your anti-zombie armaments before the battles begin. Let’s get to the Gunsmith and find out more about perfecting your pre-game Loadouts.
Stats and Camos: Naturally, each of these Loadout elements have Zombies-related Challenges and Badges related to them, and the weapons have Camos to grind for. This includes four highly-desirable Mastery Camos in Zombies – more information to come!
Primary Weapon, Fists, and Melee
Your main method of eliminating the undead consists of a primary weapon, your fists (until you find a second weapon in the match) and a dedicated melee weapon (either sharp or blunt) for when the situation gets even messier, as an alternative to a melee strike with the butt of your gun.
Primary Weapon: Choose from any available Assault Rifle, SMG, Shotgun, LMG, Marksman Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Handgun, or Launcher
Melee Weapon: Choose from the available Melee armaments
Further Improvements and In-Game Access
Weapons can also be:
- Purchased with Essence at Wall Buys (with a higher rarity than your loadout weapon) or in Mystery Boxes (randomized, with a higher rarity).
- Dropped and swapped between teammates.
- Improved with damage-increasing rarity powers, found at Arsenal machines.
- Improved with different Ammo Mods, found at Arsenal machines.
- Improved significantly with damage, sometimes hidden effects, and additional ammunition reserves, at the Pack-a-Punch machine.
- Using the Zombie Build system: Found in a Wall Buy or Mystery Box as one of your own personal weapon builds, provided you’ve saved the custom build and assigned it to be accessible at a Wall Buy or Mystery Box, in the Loadout Menu before a match. This will even implement the camo, charm, and stickers you’ve applied to your Zombie Build weapon.
Field Upgrades
Each member of your squad is bringing a piece of specialized equipment known as Field Upgrades, a powerful device that offers a chargeable, impressive elemental ability, followed by a cooldown period when the Field Upgrade recharges and is ready to be used again. You’ll earn more charges simply by eliminating enemies, not with the passage of time.
At launch, expect to choose a familiar Field Upgrade from past Zombies games:
- Aether Shroud: Phase into the Dark Aether, becoming hidden from enemy detection.
- Frenzied Guard: Repair armor and force all enemies in the area to target you. During this time, kills repair a portion of your armor.
- Healing Aura: Summons beams of energy down on yourself and allies to instantly revive and heal to full health.
- Energy Mine: Create a mine of pure energy that detonates in rapid succession, dealing lethal electric damage.
In addition, expect a brand-new Field Upgrade know as Dark Flare, offering a new and impressive offensive capability:
- Dark Flare: You generate a massive energy beam that deals lethal shadow damage. The beam penetrates everything in its path.
Further Improvements
- Field Upgrades can be made even more powerful with the use of Augments.
- Field Upgrades cannot be dropped, but now for the first time in Zombies, you can swap to a different Field Upgrade at any time during a match by using the in-game menu. Note that your cooldown will reset upon switching to a different Field Upgrade.
Field Upgrade Example: Additional pieces of Dark Flare
With some promising mass takedowns during previous matches, you begin focusing on researching the Dark Flare Field Upgrade between matches, and start to unlock the Minor and Major Augments, adding yet more power to future uses of this Field Upgrade. Once fully researched, you have the following three Minor Augments, and three Major Augments to choose from.
Before your next match, you simply choose one Minor, and one Major Augment, depending on your specific needs, and can swap between other Augments between Matches.
Tacticals, Lethals, Support Equipment (Crafting Table)
Unlike Black Ops Cold War, you’re facing down zombie hordes with a choice of Tactical and Lethal Equipment that you can bring into the Infil with you.
Tactical Equipment (Crafting Table)
Tacticals offer the use of an additional, non-lethal advantage to partner with a more devastating attack (from a Lethal or another Weapon). Current Loadout Tacticals include Concussion or Decoy Grenades, or the ever useful Stim Shot.
Once in-game, you can use Salvage you’ve acquired from dropped zombies (Ground Loot) to construct a wide variety of Tactical Equipment, each with a different cost (in Salvage). Craft tacticals including concussion grenades, stim shots, shock charge traps, and more.
Lethal Equipment (Crafting Table)
Lethals are usually utilized when masses of writhing undead appendages are threatening to overwhelm you or your team. Choose Frag, Sticky, or Thermo Grenades, the Combat Axe, or the new Blast Trap, a small missile strapped with an improvised explosive. These lethals can include frag or sticky grenades, Molotovs, C4, Blast Traps, Combat Axes, and more.
Support Equipment (Crafting Table)
Between bouts of undead culling, access the Crafting Table and you’ll be able to spend Salvage to construct an impressive array of Support equipment, which also occasionally drops as ground loot. Some examples include Self-Revives and Sentry Turrets.
New Support Equipment: Mutant Injection
One of the Support items you can craft is the Mutant Injection which allows you to transform into, and temporarily wreak havoc as, a Mangler! Once you inject yourself with the serum, you grow an additional three feet taller, become clad in plated armor, and can throw your weight about with a vicious Melee Swipe, ranged Mangler Cannon attack, and a zombie-killing barging sprint, all with some seriously impressive damage upgrades. Your new form even allows [REDACTED].
GobbleGums: Custom Packs (GobbleGum Machine)
Crack your teeth as well as the skulls of the undead with a variety of custom GobbleGum Packs, based on your stored reserves of this killer candy! Pick a single Pack to bring with you; with each Pack containing five different single-use GobbleGums that you’ve chosen to access during a match via a special confectionary machine that holds each GobbleGum in your pack and spits out one randomly once you interact with it.
The GobbleGums you can choose are based on the collection you have in your inventory. One of the ways to continuously keep your GobbleGum collection filled is by earning them in-game (see below). GobbleGums are single-use items and are permanently removed from your inventory once received in-game.
Mr. Peeks is only too happy to provide you with an in-game confectionary machine from which to extricate your gobstopper. Simply interact with it (no Essence required) and a GobbleGum is randomly dropped, ready for pickup. The machine then cools down on a timer or will be immediately reset on the next round. Grab the sweet, and then it’s added into your inventory and HUD. You can store up to three unique GobbleGums at once, and use one, two, or all three of them at once as well. This may very well add many new dimensions to combat as these GobbleGum effects interact with your fellow teammates and other augmentations and powerups….
Meat the enemy
Know your Terminus Zombie: Hordes of the undead
Almost all the residents of the maps you visit in round-based Zombies appear to have gone through a horrifying transformation, becoming a rotting host, shambling into a crowd of walking cadavers, each with sunken glowing eyes now reborn with a relentless purpose; to hunt you down and consume your still-twitching corpse!
Consult the following Bestiary to learn more about the foul forms encountered throughout the Terminus map. Remember: These entities do not represent the full miscellany of Black Ops 6 Zombies enemies you should expect to face in the game.
Zombies
Zombies are relentless. They will follow you, crowding into a swarm-like horde, intent on your demise. If they can’t reach you to claw you to death, they rip a portion of their own form and use it as a revolting meat projectile.
Armored Zombies
These are a zombie variant that have protective coverings, and also take reduced damage from projectiles and explosive damage. Focused fire on a particular appendage is a possible effective plan here.
Heavy Zombies
Armored Zombies clad in greater protective armor and are even better protected from projectiles and explosive damage compared to their lightly armored brethren.
Grotesques and Tormented Horrors
Quite how scuttling, spiderlike human heads and bloated bile sacks with wings have evolved to join the zombie throng is yet to be determined, but be prepared to be attacked by eldritch things arguably more grotesque than a mere animated corpse.
Vermin
Vermin are large, spider-like ravenous scuttlers with a central thorax that seems to take the form of a screaming human head. Relatively weak individually, they become more dangerous in packs, and sometimes appear after “detaching” from a fallen zombie host: In a spray of blood, the head and some internal organs rip free of the skin and sprout legs. Keep your head on a swivel, lest you’re dropped on. Vermin sprint and jump to inflict damage, mouth wide-open with a wet growl. They’ve also been known to spit a caustic substance, but this is the least of your worries.
Vermin also have the potential to evolve into another form, emitting gas, elongating their skull thorax and changing into an airborne terror, the Parasite.
Parasites
Parasites are horrific flying creatures consisting of a toothy head attached to spindly membrane-like wings, and a bulging sack of flesh as an abdomen. They seem to possess a level of cunning, preferring to remain at a distance, harassing you with a pelting of acid-bile projectiles spat from the maw.
Manglers
A new Mangler suit variant has been greenlit by Project Janus, now armed with an Aetherium-augmented cannon and prone to extended bouts of primal rage. It is these bipedal tanks that now roam parts of the island, threatening all with a cannon that shoots multiple shots, and a vicious melee that anyone should steer well clear of.
Amalgams
The zenith of the body horror aesthetic, the Amalgam is a form of fleshy deviancy that until now has defied explanation. Roughly over eight feet in height, and retaining a general humanoid mass, this appears – to put this politely – to be the combined DNA of multiple individuals. It has multiple appendages, including heads, all growing from seemingly random locations.
Higher-Round Hordes
For those advanced players hoping for a challenge, get ready to pull out all the stops and learn a few new tricks as the round numbers climb. Zombies start to move with an increased swiftness, from shamble to run, to sprint. It becomes even more critical to learn escape and circular routes as well as every zombie spawn nest, lest you’re hemmed in and overwhelmed in seconds. The horde itself grows as the rounds increase, as does the frequency of Armored and Heavy Zombies, Manglers, the more revolting parasitical entities, as well the grotesque Amalgams.
Players should also expect a higher level of difficulty in general when it comes to high-round play, as Treyarch has limited the number of Self-Revive purchases to three per match. Coupled with the risk vs. reward nature of Augments (rather than relying on five tiers of permanent Weapon Skill upgrades in Black Ops Cold War, for example), players will need to make some tough choices to plan for their survival compared to more recent Zombies experiences.
Operators and Handlers: Meet the Terminus Team
As a longstanding veteran of the broader Call of Duty: Black Ops storyline, Grigori Weaver is no stranger to the ever-evolving nature of war and conflict—and the gray area it frequently inhabits. Despite the guilt he feels for his perceived “failure” as the team’s commander, he is more than determined to confront and expose his former Director’s duplicity and agendas—whatever they may be. He’s done playing politics and is willing to burn the whole house down to expose the corruption that has led them to their current situation.
Elizabeth Grey is no longer the meek and somewhat naive scientist who was so thrilled to be invited to work with Requiem that she was somewhat blind to the realities of the Dark Aether threat… and the dubious ethics of those who sought to control its power. These qualities had already changed with the loss of Samatha Maxis, but the injustice of her imprisonment brought out a tougher side she never even knew existed within her. Thanks to Carver’s mentorship and training, her transformation has made her more than capable of facing any threat head on.
For Carver, his lifelong belief in the military—not to mention his own distinguished career—has been shattered. He is understandably aggrieved, but not bitter. On the surface, it may seem that he has “run out of [[REDACTED]] to give,” but instead he is more dedicated to his friends and colleagues than ever, and believes that with determination, they will right this terrible injustice.
As for Strauss, not only has he not fared well under the strain of incarceration and intense interrogation, his age and increasingly eccentric personality mean he is deeply reliant on his colleagues—not just for his own physical wellbeing, but also his sanity.
Events take an explosive turn when Maya Aguinaldo, a young Filipina smuggler, arrives on the island in pursuit of her own (and very personal) agenda related to the disappearance of her own brother. More significantly for our team, she is accompanied by a familiar, but far from welcome face…
There are many profanities that could be used to describe Dr. William Peck, but even the most offensive ones would fail to adequately do justice to just how detestable he is in the eyes of our heroes.
Get to know Terminus Team and the undead threats they face when Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches on PS5 October 25.
*Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III / Call of Duty: Warzone on the pre-ordered platform required to redeem Woods Operator Pack. Sold / downloaded separately. Must be redeemed by October 25, 2025.
**Actual launch date(s) and platform availability of Open Beta subject to change. See www.callofduty.com/beta for more details. Minimum Open Beta duration is 2 days. Limited time only. Internet connection required. Online multiplayer subscription may be required.