Since its announcement by Treyarch, Outbreak Zombies is one the most anticipated games for me. We have finally gotten an open-world Zombies Call of Duty, and the 25th of February could not come fast enough. The announcement and gameplay trailer gave the impression of a great Zombie experience ever and Outbreak Zombies didn’t disappoint. Outbreak mode is nothing like I have seen before. This is a completely different Zombies than I have ever played, and I knew I had to play this soon and I couldn’t be patient anymore. For one, we can now use vehicles to get to our required destination, which is one thing I was begging for years to happen.
Outbreak Zombies mode was a part of the brand-new Season Two of Call of Duty Cold War. The new season came out on the 25th of February 2021 and was available on platforms ranging from Microsoft Windows to Xbox Series X/S. Season Two was highly anticipated. We had just had Season One and it was brilliant, but with Season Two here with us, there is no turning back and I am very grateful for the mass levels of content given to us by Treyarch. The main reason I was very excited for the new season was because of the Outbreak mode, which features open-world gameplay, which as mentioned had never experienced before.
It’s like Treyarch had taken a lot of things I had imagined and put them into this mode. This game shows that it isn’t only for hardcore Zombies players, but also would be a great experience for even the most casual Zombies players, and this game mode can have some chill time and just roam around the map.
This mode would feel a lot easier to casual gamers for going for high rounds. Primarily because this is a much larger map than any other Call of Duty Zombies map ever designed. So, it will be a lot simpler to train Zombies. Another reason is that we can use vehicles to not only get out of tricky situations, but you can also run over Zombies to save some ammo. However, unfortunately, players can only run over Zombies with vehicles for a very limited number, as every time you run over a Zombie, the health bar of the vehicle reduces, which isn’t much fun, but on the other hand, ironically it adds more realism to the fictional post-apocalyptic environment.
This experience in this game mode is far more exciting and better than I had anticipated. It is a lot better when you are playing with your crew. That’s not to say that it isn’t great when you are either playing on your own, or with a friend. However, in this game mode, when you are playing with a crew, plus having all these brand new Zombies features, words couldn’t possibly explain how much fun I had with my crew. Especially when we were completing Easter Eggs in Outbreak. I have only tried a few side Easter Eggs, but they were fun and also very simple to complete. It does get difficult trying to uncover every single Easter Egg on the map, which is why I could only accomplish a few.
I have not many problems with the fact that the gameplay did not improve from the last couple of Zombies maps, because firstly, the gameplay is fine as it is for now, and secondly, other cool new features generally make this game mode phenomenal. The rounds get more difficult and the Zombie’s health and other tougher Zombies like Russian Manglers appear as the rounds go. The Perks are the same as the Firebase Z map, the weapons and the Rai-K 84 are in there, and the Raygun has also made its way to the map and they’re both still very useful for high rounds.
This map would benefit me more if I was able to ping items and locations for my teammates. This would help because it is very annoying having to stay at a certain location near an item until people would know where and what to collect. Not to mention, this functionality would also help a lot if I was to complete a certain side mission. I was playing on the PlayStation 5 version, and the visuals were as beautiful as the regular Zombies maps. The stunning 4K graphics adds more spice to the map’s location. The map is incredibly large, and it looks like Treyarch has taken considerable time in developing the map’s objects and areas. I had no issues with the audio.
Ultimately, Outbreak is a Zombies player’s dream. This mode features so many great elements that make this mode much more thrilling than any other Zombies mode in the History of Call of Duty gaming. Open-world Zombies should have been introduced years ago. However, it is here now, and this is a phenomenal debut. Hopefully will stay in the Zombies community permanently.