Season 4 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is right around the corner, with Treyarch having already gone into detail about what kinds of fresh content players can expect to see on May 29 and beyond. As expected, all of Black Ops 6 and Warzone's major multiplayer modes are set to receive their fair share of new experiences, with Zombies receiving some particularly ambitious and attention-grabbing changes.
While Season 4 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is not set to introduce a new major Zombies map to the title, one key upcoming addition has still been the source of an explosion of excitement. Well over a decade since its debut for the CoD franchise, Season 4 of Black Ops 6 will see the re-introduction of Grief as a major Zombies game mode. Of course, the original portrayal of Grief in Black Ops 2 is looked at by many as iconic, yet the confirmed range of maps for Black Ops 6's take on the mode offers one clear advantage over the original.
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Black Ops 6 Zombies' Grief Mode Has a Clear Focus on Variety
2012's Black Ops 2 is widely considered as one of the best entries to the Call of Duty franchise, especially in terms of how it evolved the series' popular Zombies mode. Aside from its wide range of well-received maps and fresh weapons, Black Ops 2 leaned further into alternate game modes for Zombies, away from the usual PvE survival, with Grief standing out as one of the most memorable of these ambitious additions.
Grief involves two teams of four facing off against each other in small-scale survival maps, with players having a wide range of ways to hinder their opponents in their attempts to be the last team standing. The mode did well to breathe more life into pre-existing maps while opening up Zombies to more expansive multiplayer experiences, with many players having wanted to see the return of Grief in Call of Duty ever since.
While Grief was planned to appear in 2018's Black Ops 4, the mode was ultimately scrapped, leading to even more excitement around Black Ops 6's confirmation of the mode's return through its upcoming Season 4. The core concept of Grief is enough to get fans excited, but it seems clear that the decade-plus wait for the mode's return necessitates some innovation and improvement. Treyarch has partially achieved this through the introduction of Capture Zones that can bestow debuffs to opposing players, but the immediate variety of Grief maps in BO6 is one big positive compared to the original.
Alongside Grief, Black Ops 6's Season 4 will see the introduction of new LTMs, events, Gobblegums, support streaks, and ammo mods.
Black Ops 6's Grief Map Pool is an Excellent Sign of Things to Come
Despite how enjoyable Black Ops 2's Grief was, the overall map pool of the mode was quite small, only featuring Town, Farm, Borough, and Cell Block. These maps were simply composed of small areas from the major maps TranZit, Buried, and Mob of the Dead, with Black Ops 2's other major Zombies maps never contributing to Grief's map pool. This is a relative weak point of BO2's Grief that Treyarch has already proudly moved away from with the latest form of Grief, which already boasts a much larger map pool.
At the mode's launch, it is confirmed that Grief will feature a respectable 11 maps, taken from the likes of Liberty Falls, Terminus, Citadelle des Morts, The Tomb, and Shattered Veil, already eclipsing the final map count of Black Ops 2's Grief. These new maps are known as Grief Arenas, with it seeming likely that Treyarch will only add to this sizable map pool as new major maps are added to Black Ops 6's Zombies. The legacy of Black Ops 2's Grief is echoed in the mode's upcoming re-appearance in Black Ops 6, yet the much larger variety of maps in the upcoming portrayal seems like a big advantage over the original.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- October 25, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Suggestive Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Treyarch, Raven Software
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
- Engine
- IW 9.0
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- Yes - PlayStation, Xbox, PC
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- FPS
