Black Ops III is still receiving new content, and coming back to Treyarch’s 2015 title is a lot of fun. An update on March 5 has added a snowy variant of the Redwood map and the addition of the popular Infected game mode, which became available to play on March 6.
I’ve been pretty devoted to Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: WWII, but after dumping over 200 hours into it over the past few months, I decided that this was a good time to return to Black Ops III.
The third installment of the Black Ops series has really held up well over time. There has been a ton of post-launch content added into the supply drops, and for me personally, there’s still plenty of weapons and gear to collect. Black Ops III also maintains a pretty active player base, so I never have any trouble hopping into matches.
As of March 6, 48 percent of the player base is enjoying the new playlists featuring Infected and the new Redwood Snow map. Sliding around and “infecting” people can be a lot of fun, but many players are asking, “why now?” There’s been a high demand for the Infected mode to be added to Call of Duty: WWII, so it’s interesting to see the mode arrive in a game that’s over two years old instead.
In Infected, one random player spawns as the “infected” and must kill other players to infect them. Once killed, players respawn as infected, and they then work to eliminate the other team, who must work to stay alive until the time runs out. The fast-paced movement of Black Ops III definitely works really well here, but all the wall running and boosting can create a quite a chase.
The new bonus map, Redwood in the winter, is a beautiful treat. The wind sounds haunting as it whips through the trees, and I really start to get chills as I play.
Redwood Snow has the same layout as the original Redwood, but now it’s basically like jetpacking around a frozen forest, which has sparked an easter egg hunt within the community: The Frozen Forest was a heavy theme in the Black Ops III campaign, and some YouTubers are searching for clues on Redwood Snow that might tease Treyarch’s upcoming title for this fall, which Kotaku reporter Jason Schreier confirmed yesterday is the fourth Black Ops, styled Black Ops IIII.
Treyarch is known for building hype with viral marketing campaigns that tease its upcoming titles. It’s possible that Redwood Snow was chosen to tease a tie-in to Black Ops III’s Frozen Forest. Some players speculate the winter map is arriving in March instead of a more appropriate seasonal time in order to begin teasing a Cold War-era Call of Duty game. You know… cold.
But regardless if the added content harbors any secrets, Black Ops III is definitely worth jumping back into for a few matches.