Bungie delivered. The Final Shape was a worthy conclusion to Destiny’s Light and Dark saga, more than living up to the ten-year build. It continued the hot streak of campaign expansions in Destiny that started with The Witch Queen (despite notable issues with Lightfall’s story, I thought the campaign was full of remarkable encounters and memorable set pieces) and provided an emotional and earned climax.
The positive reception was anything but a foregone conclusion. Bungie has taken quite the beating since the poor reception of Lightfall. Missed internal development targets resulted in The Final Shape suffering from a delay, with a controversial number of cuts and redundancies occurring in the background. Not to mention a brutal decline in player count. Many expected Destiny to hobble over the finishing line, but The Final Shape has rejuvenated the game, giving it a much-needed shot in the arm.
Aside from Business issues and questions surrounding the franchise’s future, the Destiny 2 development team faced a tough decision about how to end the expansion. The being in charge of the Black Fleet, The Witness, was the big bad, so having it as the Raid’s final boss made the most sense, but that would lock many guardians out of experiencing the story’s resolution. This no doubt had developers conflicted, but they reached the perfect resolution.
The campaign’s final mission had our guardians face off against The Witness, but we only wounded it – proved it was vulnerable. The Assault on the Monolith in the Salvation’s Edge raid is where The Witness took a real beating but could not be defeated. Only after the first full raid completion was The Witness finally unmade. Excision, a new twelve-guardian activity, was unlocked for all players following confirmation of a Raid clear, and it was phenomenal.
The activity focussed on spectacle over difficulty, with friendly faces from throughout Destiny’s history jumping in to lend the fireteam a hand. The activity was still dangerous, but with the large fireteam size and ability to respawn, players could focus on being immersed in the moment instead of getting frustrated.
The execution of The Final Shape’s ending was flawless. The campaign had a satisfying conclusion but clarified there was more to do. The Raid was the challenge raiders hoped for (it surpassed The Last Wish as the longest World’s First time in Destiny history), yet every guardian could still experience the ending that had been ten years in the making.
As Bungie charts a new course for Destiny, my attention turns to Black Ops 6 Zombies. The Zombies Team has had similar issues to Bungie with trying to balance an experience for different levels of players. Experiencing significant story beats had been unobtainable for casual players for a long time due to the hardcore nature of the main Easter Egg quest (a step-by-step challenge hidden across the map).
Black Ops 3, seen by most as the peak of the mode’s storytelling, had most players first experience the story through YouTube videos and live streams. Even I did this, as I knew it would be a while before a guide came out, and as a predominantly solo player, I was never going to be able to solve the Egg myself. I didn’t want to risk having the latest story revelations spoiled.
Cold War made the main EE quest more accessible for players. While this resulted in more completions, it also upset long-term fans. Hardcore Zombies players enjoy the hunt and challenge of a complex, at times convoluted, Easter Egg quest. I did miss the difficulty and some of the admittedly bizarre EE steps, but I also appreciated being able to experience the ending of maps in-game for the first time. It’s one of many hotly contested debates in the Zombies community and one with no quick solution.
But what if the Zombies Team took a page out of Destiny’s book? What if what we all know currently as the “main EE quest” was split, and we had two distinct activities on a round-based map: a story quest and an easter egg quest? The story quest could be locked off to players until the first successful easter egg completion, much like the final encounter with The Witness, which wasn’t available until a team successfully cleared the Raid in The Final Shape.
Call of Duty: WW2 Zombies, developed by Sledgehammer, tried simultaneously having a hardcore and casual quest, but the execution could have been better. Rather than feeling like two unique quests, the hardcore quest felt more like an extended version of the casual one, with a few additional steps, a more challenging boss fight, and a slightly different ending. It was a good idea but needed more time in the oven.
Locking the story like this would make the hunt more exciting, and players would actively support each other in solving the egg and unlocking the story quest for all players. However, I should mention that Destiny has some issues with its Raid races’ competitiveness. Zombies fans are no strangers to “first-in-the-world” drama, but the excitement of new story developments and gameplay opportunities would hopefully keep the toxicity levels low.
When creating maps, Treyarch would no longer worry about marrying Easter Egg steps with the story. Although not consistently a negative, the need to ensure an EE step is difficult to discover and easily repeatable while progressing the story is likely a headache for developers. The infamous Revelations main quest threw coherent storytelling out of the window for the most part, and it took a week to be solved. If a story quest exists, it can be more linear and direct (like Cold War’s casual-focussed main quests), making the Easter Egg more challenging to uncover with obscure steps.
Having two activities could result in many players skipping over the Easter Egg and just playing the story quest. To prevent this from happening, Treyarch could implement measures to incentivise casual players to try and tackle the more difficult EE quest. In Black Ops 3, you could follow the main beats of the story purely by watching the map intro and ending cutscenes. If the story quest rewards players with the ending cutscene, casual Zombies players will be able to keep up with the story.
However, Treyarch also hid vital context and story details throughout the BO3 maps via narrative systems such as dialogue, radios/whisps, and documents. If a few important radios were tied exclusively to the EE quest, it might result in casual players wanting to dig deeper down the rabbit hole to discover more.
Destiny often rewards players for completing a quest with lore entries. If Treyarch implements something similar in Black Ops 6 for story and EE quest completions, it could address one of the issues some players had with the Intel system: lack of gameplay variety for collecting intel.
Believe it or not, there are Zombies players that don’t care about the story (blasphemy, I know!). Additional rewards for completing the EE, like a guaranteed mega Gobblegum, craftable currency, or an exclusive operator skin/blueprint, would incentivise these players to complete it. Having two unique activities alongside all the traditional bells and whistles of a round-based map would give each Zombies experience in BO6 more replayability than ever before.
Although Modern Warfare Zombies is very different from traditional Zombies, its approach showed that Treyarch is open to experimenting with the Easter Egg formula and how it impacts storytelling. The framework of MWZ is very similar to what I’m proposing in this article! It has campaign-like story missions, followed by a short easter egg quest. The story missions end with a cutscene, while the EE quests unlock a Dark Aether rift for additional loot opportunities.
MWZ was a decent first attempt, but there were some glaring flaws. With the story missions covering the narrative events, the EE quests felt slightly directionless and paint-by-numbers: get four items, cleanse three items, place the items at an altar, and repeat. They were somewhat anti-climactic affairs, especially following the scripted story missions with full cinematic cutscenes. It was like seeing the headlining act of a concert play before the support act. Ultimately, I don’t think the order matters too much. The main focus of my argument is the separation of the story quest and the easter egg. It’s the best scenario for Zombies. Casual players get to keep up with the story; hardcore fans experience the thrill of an old-fashioned EE hunt, and both sets of players benefit from more content in the game overall.
Of course, many factors contribute to creating EEs and quests in Zombies, and they are why we can’t just get round-based maps after round-based maps. In particular, former creative director Jason Blundell always mentioned testing as a massive part of Zombies’ development; the more activities inside a map, the more arduous the testing process is. Having two distinct activities for each round-based map may not be possible as much as you, Treyarch, or I want it to be.
Treyarch has likely already decided and locked in a way to try to please both casual and hardcore fans of Zombies in BO6. Whatever the decision is, it isn’t something that can turn on a dime. It’s fun to think about, though, and having a more apparent distinction between a main story quest and a traditional easter egg is something I’d love to see experimented with more in the future.
It won’t all be smooth sailing, but I’m excited for Black Ops 6 Zombies and pray that the feedback remains constructive. It is easy to deliver negative feedback without turning it into a tirade of abuse or engaging in rage-bait content.
The small amount of information we have on Black Ops 6 Zombies makes it clear our feedback is being listened to. Round-based is back; we have a dedicated crew of characters but can still use operators, and Gobblegums have returned. The last few years have been tough for Zombies fans, but it’s evident Treyarch has worked hard in the background to deliver the best Zombies experience possible.
What Bungie achieved with The Final Shape, after redundancies and a delay, was incredible. If there’s anything the Zombies Team at Treyarch can take from it – the subject of this article aside – it should be that no matter the obstacles or noise, having a passion for what you’re creating will help you prevail. It’s common knowledge that Zombies has had its fair share of obstacles over the years, but Treyarch comes back to face the music every single time.
Never count Treyarch out.