Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is a 2015 first-person shooter game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It is the twelfth entry in the Call of Duty series and the sequel to the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. It was released on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on November 6, 2015. A feature-limited version developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology that only supports multiplayer modes was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and was also the final Call of Duty title released on those platforms.
Black Ops III is set in 2065, 40 years after the events of Black Ops II, in a world shaped by the impacts of climate change and the rise of advanced technologies, including cybernetic enhancements. Similar to its predecessors, the story follows a group of black ops soldiers. The game's campaign is designed to support 4-player cooperative gameplay, allowing for bigger, more open level design and less corridor shooting. As the player character is cybernetically enhanced, players have access to various special activities. The game also features a standalone Zombies campaign mode, and a "Nightmares" mode, which replaces all enemies as zombies.
Announced in late April 2015, the game is the first Call of Duty video game released after Activision ended its partnership with Microsoft Studios and instead partnered with Sony Computer Entertainment, which secured the timed exclusivity of the game's downloadable content. Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews from critics, praising the gameplay, Zombies mode, and amount of content. However, it was also criticized for its story and lack of innovation. The seventh-generation console versions in particular were singled out for their performance issues and lack of features. Retrospective reviews have been mixed, with the game generally placing below the top 10 in lists ranking the series' games. It was a commercial success, becoming the top-selling retail game in the US in 2015, and one of the most successful titles released for the eighth generation of video game consoles, selling over 43 million copies worldwide since its release. A prequel, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, was released in 2018.
Gameplay
The campaign in Black Ops III is designed to support 4-player cooperative gameplay, allowing for bigger, more open and free level design and less corridor shooting. In addition, the player can customize their character's appearance and clothing. The campaign features its own progression system, featuring unlock tokens which must be used to acquire different weapons and gears as they progress through the campaign. The game features a "realistic" difficulty mode, in which players will get defeated if they are hit by one bullet. Finishing all campaign missions will also unlock "Nightmares" mode, where players can replay the entire campaign with a new narrative, as well as zombies replacing most of the normal enemies.The multiplayer mode introduces a new momentum based movement system, which utilizes thruster packs to allow players to perform slow boosts into the air, as well as perform wall running and sliding, all the while giving players complete gun control. In addition to the Pick 10 class system from Black Ops II, Treyarch implemented a character system called "Specialists", where players can pick from 9 different soldiers, each with either a special weapon or ability unique to them. In a later update, a tenth specialist named Blackjack was added to the game. Blackjack is able to mimic the abilities of other specialists, and is only playable for a short amount of time upon completing a set of challenges. A new "Gunsmith" feature offers aesthetic variations in weapon attachments, allowing various weapon customization combinations. The Paintshop feature allows players to create their own custom prints onto specific portions of a gun, further emphasizing the depth of customization in the game.
The Zombies mode features a new XP progression system, which allows players to unlock items in a similar fashion to multiplayer and campaign. Unlockable items include "Gobblegums", which grant players with temporary bonuses, and weapon kits that allow players to modify the appearance and attributes of the guns with various camos and attachments.
Black Ops III features several bonus game modes in addition to the three main offerings: Nightmares, an alternate retelling of the campaign that incorporates zombies; Dead Ops Arcade, a top-down shooter mode that acts as a sequel to the original iteration from Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Freerun, a parkour-inspired game mode where players utilize advanced movement mechanics to navigate the levels and reach the goal.
Plot
Campaign
Forty years after the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the world is in the midst of a Third Cold War between the Winslow Accord and the Common Defense Pact. On October 27, 2065, the Player and their partner Jacob Hendricks of WA Black Ops are deployed to Ethiopia to rescue the Egyptian Prime Minister and other hostages from the CDP-aligned Nile River Coalition. The extraction goes awry, leaving the Player critically wounded by a combat robot. Rescued by fellow operative John Taylor, the Player undergoes emergency cybernetic surgery, including a direct neural interface, and receives virtual training from Taylor and his teammates Sebastian Diaz, Sarah Hall, and Peter Maretti ; Hendricks also volunteers for surgery.After five years of wetwork, the Player and Hendricks are assigned to CIA handler Rachel Kane to investigate a CIA black site in Singapore. They find it attacked by the crime syndicate 54 Immortals, and the site's data stolen, leading Kane to conclude Taylor's team defected and murdered the staff. To locate the data, the Player and Hendricks disguise as arms dealers to meet the Immortals, but their cover is blown, resulting in the death of the Immortals' leader Goh Min. They recover data pointing to Taylor's last known location at a Coalescence Corporation facility in Singapore, destroyed ten years earlier in a deadly explosion. At the facility, they find a hidden CIA laboratory and discover Diaz leaking classified intel to the CDP, and they are forced to kill him. Diaz's DNI reveals Taylor's goal is to find the two survivors of the explosion: CEO Sebastian Krueger and Dr. Yousef Salim. When the leaked intel leads to Kane's capture by the Immortals, the Player defies orders to leave her behind and rescues her by killing Goh Min's sister, Xiulan.
The trio travels to Cairo and finds Salim, who reveals he conducted illegal DNI experiments involving calming humans through imagining a frozen forest. The NRC then invades, allowing Taylor's team to abduct Salim, who is tortured and executed by Taylor. The trio pursues Taylor with the Egyptian Army's help, but faces resistance from Hall. After killing Hall, the Player connects to her DNI and encounters Corvus, a gestalt intelligence manifested during the experiments to monitor DNI users' thoughts. Corvus malfunctioned, causing the explosion and later infecting Taylor's team. Corvus' obsession with finding the forest spread to the Player and Hendricks after they interfaced with Hall and Diaz respectively. After killing Maretti, the duo spark an uprising against the NRC, using the chaos to locate and corner Taylor. Taylor manages to resist Corvus and pulls out his DNI, but is killed by Hendricks, who abandons the Player to pursue Krueger.
The Player and Kane race to Coalescence's headquarters in Zürich to stop Hendricks, but discover Corvus is storing Nova 6 gas, previously used in the Singapore explosion. Kane tries to contain it but is locked in a room, and the gas is leaked, killing her in front of the Player. The Player finds Hendricks holding Krueger hostage; after Hendricks kills Krueger, the Player kills him in turn. The Player attempts to commit suicide to stop Corvus but is trapped in a simulated frozen forest created by Corvus as an afterlife for deceased DNI users. As a glitch, Taylor's consciousness reunites with the Player, advising they must purge their DNI to end Corvus. With Taylor's help, the Player resists Corvus and deletes the virus, then escapes and identifies as "Taylor" to Zürich Security Forces.
Taylor's mission reports reveal that the Player actually died during their surgery due to complications. The events that follow until Taylor's death occur in a simulation that diverges from Taylor's and Hendricks's experience of hunting down Dylan Stone and his team, who defected after discovering the black site. The Player's consciousness is shown living in Taylor's mind throughout the simulation, indicating that the Player took over Taylor's body after his simulated death until the DNI purge results in Corvus and the Player being erased as Taylor regains control.