Treyarch Addresses Zombies Quest Difficulty and Accessibility in Black Ops Cold War

On Friday, November 13th, 2020, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War released worldwide across all major platforms with a narrative-driven Campaign mode, competitive Multiplayer environment, and robust Zombies experience. Following the controversial conclusion of Tag der Toten in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Treyarch set out to take the journey in a new direction that would later be referred to as the Dark Aether storyline.

Although the Dark Aether storyline stems from the events of the Aether storyline of previous titles, the teams at Treyarch continue to take new and inventive routes to achieving the beats of the new story. From new and expanded personalities to never before seen enemy types, the future is bright for the Dark Aether.

However, a fresh take on narrative isn't the only focus for the studio; in an effort to elevate the Zombies mode to new heights and welcome more players as the Call of Duty franchise enters a new era, the core gameplay principles of the mode have also been redefined. Zombies is much more than a survival mode, and Treyarch wants players new and old to recognize this.

In an interview with IGN India, members of the Zombies development team at Treyarch discuss the modern direction of the mode and the changes they've made to broaden its appeal while remaining true to its core. One of the biggest takeaways from this interview is the thoughts of Corky Lehmkuhl, Studio Creative Director at Treyarch, on the design of main quests in Black Ops Cold War.

On this project we've actually made it a mission to make Easter Eggs more accessible or what we call ‘the main quest‘. There are some side Easter Eggs that are still somewhat obscure and you'll have to find, but for the main quest we just wanted more players to experience it.

With the release of each Zombies experience, players race to be the first to complete the main objective hidden in the depths of the level. This process is referred to as Easter egg hunting and has become a tradition amongst fans of the Zombies mode.

However, in Black Ops Cold War, players immediately recognized that the main quests of both Die Maschine and Firebase Z were solved in just a few hours - a relatively short amount of time compared to previous iterations. One of the most common pieces of feedback from long-time Zombies players is that the latest main quests are too short and easy, which Lehmkuhl addresses in this interview.

So much development time goes into these things, and if you look at the metrics, less than two percent of the players were actually seeing that stuff unless it was shown on YouTube.

Citing these metrics, it's clear that Treyarch is looking to find a balance between accessibility for new players and difficulty for hardcore players. In regard to the reception of these changes, Lehmkuhl notes positive results.

If you look at YouTube now or Reddit, a lot of people are completing their first Easter Eggs, ever – and they've been with the franchise for the full ten, twelve years.

So yes, we've definitely made it a priority to make Easter Eggs less obscure, and make sure the steps make sense with the narrative. They're still challenging, but they're not crazy hard like they used to be.

As the first quarter of 2021 comes to an end and Treyarch has released its initial post-launch Zombies experiences, fans of the mode have plenty content to come and it's clear that the studio is hearing feedback from all angles. We'll just have to wait and see what the future holds.

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