When Treyarch promised Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 would herald the return of round-based zombies, my heart skipped a beat. It's been years since I've clicked with Call of Duty's zombies – fittingly, the last entry I adored was the original Black Ops. Since then, the once arcade-y game mode has grown beyond its means, with optional Easter eggs warping into full-blown objectives that overshadow Zombies' once-simple premise: survive for as long as you can. Claustrophobic maps slipped to the wayside in favor of larger open areas, a design approach that culminated in Modern Warfare 3's disappointing Warzone-esque take on the undead shooter.
But after jumping into Black Ops 6's Zombies mode before so much as looking at its multiplayer or campaign, my love for this crawler-squashing series has been revitalized. It feels like I've stepped into one of Der Riese's teleporters and emerged in 2010, when all I could think about was my next round in Kino der Toten and the reveal of a little-known game called Skyrim – and reader, I am loving it.
