January 15th is considered a de facto holiday by some members of the Call of Duty zombies community. Treyarch has unveiled “The Tomb,” a new map for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s zombies mode, in honor of this year’s 115th anniversary. Season 2 will debut on January 28. A double XP and double GobbleGum event has also been started by the team in anticipation of the start of Season 2.
Activision and the Call of Duty team also revealed that Liberty Falls is the most-played Zombies level in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, with players logging 480 million hours of playing in the third mode. More than 90% of players that enter Zombies still fail to finish any of the game’s three Main Quests, even after accruing an enormous amount of play time. The number of players finishing the game’s map-centric storylines more than doubled once Directed Mode was added, but the developer says more has to be done to support the community’s growth.
In Call of Duty, what is 115 Day?
It would be understandable if you didn’t see the point of celebrating 115 Day. In Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies, the “holiday” alludes to the story of “Element 115,” the chemical component that reanimates dead cells and makes the undead resurrect. We only see 115 Day referenced every few years, though, because zombie modes are uncommon in other Call of Duty games that weren’t created by Treyarch.
In honor of 115 Day this year, Treyarch is throwing a Double XP event that, starting right now, delivers double the GobbleGum earn rate in zombies in addition to double player, weapon, and battle pass XP. Until January 21 at 10 AM PT/1 PM ET, the double XP event will be in effect.
“The Tomb” welcomes you
With the release of Season 1, Treyarch added a third map, Citadelle des Morts, to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies. You might have been forgiven for not anticipating the addition of any more Zombies maps until the run-up to 2025’s The Haunting event for Halloween. But at the beginning of Season 2, Treyarch chose to surprise us all by teasing a brand-new Black Ops 6 map. With its condensed gameplay areas and replayable architecture, the new map, called “The Tomb,” is designed to mimic the player experience on Liberty Falls.
The plot of The Tomb will resume with the crew trying to protect the Sentinel Artifact following the events of the Citadelle des Morts map in Season 1. They discovered an excavation site within some historic graveyards as a result of their efforts. What might go wrong in that situation?
There will be a revamped Wonder Weapon, a return of a legendary SMG, and plenty of oddball Easter Eggs, but the Tomb is specifically designed for zombies.
Zombies’ quality of life changes
In response to user feedback, Treyarch has also announced a number of new quality-of-life enhancements that will be implemented in Black Ops 6 Zombies. A prominent example is the implementation of Co-Op pausing. Zombies for Solo mode already had pause, but those of us running Liberty Falls at larger round numbers were stuck if someone in the crew required a snack or a bathroom break. The commander of a zombies game can suspend the game for everyone if they are all in the same party after Season 2. Attempting to keep a crawler alive is over!
It’s going to be far less devastating to be kicked out for AFKing in zombies, in addition to Co-Op pauses. Players who are expelled for spending too much time idle can re-enter the same cooperative game and restore their loadout with the start of Season 2.
The ability to manually track up to 10 calling card challenges and 10 camo challenges per mode are among the other often requested enhancements that will be included in Season 2. Call of Duty will now track the challenges you’re closest to finishing if you don’t choose a specific task to track. Both the in-game Options menu and the game lobby will provide camouflage tracking. Finally, gamers will be able to distinguish between their multiplayer and zombies HUD configurations.
Anticipating Season 2
The first season of post-launch content for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has been difficult. A Squid Game 2 crossover was one among the many events that kept player excitement high, but the season was tainted by shoddy AI graphics given out as in-game incentives and issues with a poor anti-cheat. By making changes based on community feedback, Treyarch and the supporting studios want to mend some of the harm done to the player base’s goodwill before Season 2 launches on January 28. But without major advancements in server reliability and anti-cheat, the team will eventually have a steep uphill climb.