While I love the idea that zombies maps aren’t behind a paywall anymore and everyone can play together, I personally feel a decrease in the quality of recent zombies maps specifically from voice acting, cutscenes and amount of side content.
ladiesman7145165
completely agree, i’ve been saying this for a while. they don’t really have an incentive to make a good original map so they just reuse assets.
JoPepsi
Free DLC is good for multiplayer but I wouldn’t mind paying up to 10 bucks for a zombies map. Might seem to expensive for some but considering how much time I spend on each map I think that is ok if it’s one the same level of quality as bo3 or bo4. Hell, at this point I would gladly pay 50 bucks for just 1 more Blundell map.
TheSledgeHamSandwich
I will agree that the free maps haven’t had that same “cinematic” feel that Bo1-Bo4 had.
But I don’t think it’s entirely because they were the free maps.
I just think resources were pulled way too thin in favor of Warzone, the new money-maker.
mariored09
That just doesn’t make sense. Just because the DLC is free doesn’t mean workers aren’t getting payed as much. That battle pass makes Activision way more in just a month than Rezurrection for $15 ever did or could.
X08-Chill
Cold war’s dev cycle is the issue, the fact we only got 4 actual maps as oppose to the 8 we had in Bo4 and the 14 by the end of Bo3. I believe if they were doing the games as a service and battle pass system in bo3/4 we would have had the same map releases other than chronicles
Kanj0Bazooie
I’d say that correlation does not equal causation. Has any free DLC Zombie map had the proper love, care and feel of even, say, Alpha Omega (which I would say is BO4’s worst map)? In my opinion, no. That’s not to say that the gameplays bad at all, but the maps? Yeah, just not feeling em.
Is this because the DLC is now free? Again, I’d say no. Something being free doesn’t make it inherently worse, though that’s certainly the route Zombies is going, I don’t think *any* DLC maps since Cold War have been even 50% original to the Zombie’s mode (not a bad thing mind, but it’s worth noting). But I’d just wager this to the constantly rushed development time that Activision insists that the devs need to work under. Still, you could argue that paid DLC gives the devs more incentives to work harder? It makes some amount of sense, I suppose.
Anyway, I get this perspective, but I don’t exactly think it’s entirely true
SamSlayer09078-x
Maybe we should say these kind of things when we get a zombies game with mediocre maps that developers weren’t forced to rush out instead of now blaming free DLC while ignoring the actual cause of the lower quality maps.
ZXKeyr324XZ
Good game is when money
It does not work like that, cod devs are spread out way too thin and crunched to hell and beyond, this limits their capacity to make quality content.
thedamnhamuhh
simply adding a price tag doesn’t increase quality of a map, do you think if we had to pay for maps in cold war we wouldnt of gotten firebase Z?
Censored4TateSpeech
Idk. Seems like they were going down hill during the bo4 days anyway and you still had to pay for those. I just assume they don’t get much attention as they used to because it’s just as easy to build a multiplayer map and then port it to zombies too.
Tof12345
You know what? I low-key miss the days when I was anticipating the new map pack in games like bo1. I remember saving up a measly 10 bucks, going to a store and buying a 10 buck gift card and spending all weekend playing the map. I miss those days. Maps like Moon, COTD, Buried, Origins were all worth the money.
originsspeedrunner
Kind of True tbh. While gameplay in CW is great, the maps definitely lack originality and passion.
RdJokr1993
Any of you who thinks paid DLCs equal “quality” have not played Exo Zombies or the latter half of IWZ, and it shows.
mrchrisker
I don’t think its because they were free they were ruined. I think it’s much deeper than that there’s plenty of games that provide free content with it being subsidies by micro transaction’s GTA, Minecraft, Fortnite, Warframe etc all provide pretty good content all for no additional cost. I think it’s a matter of short development time paired with the lead of the project being gone and the integraspe with MW and warzone. I’d imagine the things I listed hurt far worse than it was free because they more than made up for dlc sales with selling skins and camos
Ze-Doctor
That does not work like that. What would you have said if the maps in Cold War were paid DLC? What would you have blamed then?
My main topic would be the lack of creativity and support for the side mode, as well as the fucked up releases in recent years.
greiffster
Only one game of free DLC is not enough data to prove this.
FattestSpiderman
Free has nothing to do with it, it’s business. Resources would be determined by projections, and Vanguard had to live up to something that changed the game for the franchise, which evidently wasn’t possible. No amount of money or devs etc would have made a difference to Vanguard when time was the resource devs lacked.
It’s dangerously naive to think devs wouldn’t care about something they spent their lives working towards, and post Revelations its a hard act to follow. Lets just hope Treyarch devs have all resources necessary for the next project.
999___Forever
Oh brotherrrrr here we go again
brave_legunator
World at War had free DLC on PC and those maps were great
PepsiEnjoyer
Yeah, I think paid maps were better but I still think Cold War Zombies was very good. The best way to improve COD Zombies would be to give specific guidance on how to do the Easter Egg (a bit like WWII Zombies).
sconkman
They could have chose to stick with a paid DLC model, and had they produced quality DLC people would have bought it, played it and and reviewed it positively. Had they produced shit DLC, and given the quality of content over the past few years, it likely would have been, then people would complain even more than they currently do. At least by offering free content COD fans don’t feel even more hard done by…
ScreamXGhostface
Why are so many of Greg’s takes correct? First he’s a certified Bo3 and Bo4 lover and now this? Bro is out here having the right opinions.
Otherwise-Routine-27
Greg when Treyarch doesnt make the best zombies map during a pandemic and with bareky no funds
I-wanna-fuck-SCP1471
Wrong take
It makes zero difference to the actual developers whether the content they’re making is going to be sold as paid DLC or not.
Activision are just pumping all their budget into warzone because its the new cash cow.
you_wouldnt_get_it_
Somewhat true but there’s other elements too. We now have 6 DLC seasons instead of 4. The dev time for CW and Vanguard has been awful for the workers themselves (fucking Activision).
And Warzone easily eats up a lot of allocated development time these days.
Lares976
Bullshit.
ATVI “forcing” 3arc to “rush” from project to project cause some other zobie team couldn’t do their thing properly led to the quality to go to shit.
BigTiddyOstrogothGF
I really do not understand how people saw the low-budget DLC maps and cutscenes of BO4 and somehow thought Treyarch would do even better *for free.* The writing was on the wall the whole time.
Zeno_Bueno
It definitely decreased the quality but it didn’t RUIN them
LordOryx
A post I made in advance of Cold War: “I’m worried we’re gonna get screwed by ‘free DLC’ meaning free-level-quality zombies such as many remade maps”
Well, it turned out to be reused assets rather than remade maps. But yeah, there was no incentive.
DeusBex
Nonsense. The actual developers don’t handle monetisation; that’s entirely managed by the ‘suits’ at Activision.
The reason Zombies and MP have both had a dip in quality, or at least perceived quality anyway, is likely that more development time and focus is going to Warzone. It’s the money-maker, after all.
Bust_McNutty
Free dlc killed the quality of everything in gaming, why would the devs put effort into maps and gamemodes when the only think they’re going to make money off of is skins and bundles?
DoctorTide
Disagree. I think the downgrade in quality has more to do with employee attrition and the studios falling more and more behind in their annual cycle. If the DLC was still paid, the outrage would be worse.
Ganda1fderBlaue
It’s true, I thought so as well. Zombie maps were much better when they weren’t free.
SebbyWebbyDooda
The issue isn’t that they’re now free, they just don’t try as hard now.
Free content updates are surprisingly more profitable than paid ones, they just need to make good content
37 Comments
While I love the idea that zombies maps aren’t behind a paywall anymore and everyone can play together, I personally feel a decrease in the quality of recent zombies maps specifically from voice acting, cutscenes and amount of side content.
completely agree, i’ve been saying this for a while. they don’t really have an incentive to make a good original map so they just reuse assets.
Free DLC is good for multiplayer but I wouldn’t mind paying up to 10 bucks for a zombies map. Might seem to expensive for some but considering how much time I spend on each map I think that is ok if it’s one the same level of quality as bo3 or bo4. Hell, at this point I would gladly pay 50 bucks for just 1 more Blundell map.
I will agree that the free maps haven’t had that same “cinematic” feel that Bo1-Bo4 had.
But I don’t think it’s entirely because they were the free maps.
I just think resources were pulled way too thin in favor of Warzone, the new money-maker.
That just doesn’t make sense. Just because the DLC is free doesn’t mean workers aren’t getting payed as much. That battle pass makes Activision way more in just a month than Rezurrection for $15 ever did or could.
Cold war’s dev cycle is the issue, the fact we only got 4 actual maps as oppose to the 8 we had in Bo4 and the 14 by the end of Bo3. I believe if they were doing the games as a service and battle pass system in bo3/4 we would have had the same map releases other than chronicles
I’d say that correlation does not equal causation. Has any free DLC Zombie map had the proper love, care and feel of even, say, Alpha Omega (which I would say is BO4’s worst map)? In my opinion, no. That’s not to say that the gameplays bad at all, but the maps? Yeah, just not feeling em.
Is this because the DLC is now free? Again, I’d say no. Something being free doesn’t make it inherently worse, though that’s certainly the route Zombies is going, I don’t think *any* DLC maps since Cold War have been even 50% original to the Zombie’s mode (not a bad thing mind, but it’s worth noting). But I’d just wager this to the constantly rushed development time that Activision insists that the devs need to work under. Still, you could argue that paid DLC gives the devs more incentives to work harder? It makes some amount of sense, I suppose.
Anyway, I get this perspective, but I don’t exactly think it’s entirely true
Maybe we should say these kind of things when we get a zombies game with mediocre maps that developers weren’t forced to rush out instead of now blaming free DLC while ignoring the actual cause of the lower quality maps.
Good game is when money
It does not work like that, cod devs are spread out way too thin and crunched to hell and beyond, this limits their capacity to make quality content.
simply adding a price tag doesn’t increase quality of a map, do you think if we had to pay for maps in cold war we wouldnt of gotten firebase Z?
Idk. Seems like they were going down hill during the bo4 days anyway and you still had to pay for those. I just assume they don’t get much attention as they used to because it’s just as easy to build a multiplayer map and then port it to zombies too.
You know what? I low-key miss the days when I was anticipating the new map pack in games like bo1. I remember saving up a measly 10 bucks, going to a store and buying a 10 buck gift card and spending all weekend playing the map. I miss those days. Maps like Moon, COTD, Buried, Origins were all worth the money.
Kind of True tbh. While gameplay in CW is great, the maps definitely lack originality and passion.
Any of you who thinks paid DLCs equal “quality” have not played Exo Zombies or the latter half of IWZ, and it shows.
I don’t think its because they were free they were ruined. I think it’s much deeper than that there’s plenty of games that provide free content with it being subsidies by micro transaction’s GTA, Minecraft, Fortnite, Warframe etc all provide pretty good content all for no additional cost. I think it’s a matter of short development time paired with the lead of the project being gone and the integraspe with MW and warzone. I’d imagine the things I listed hurt far worse than it was free because they more than made up for dlc sales with selling skins and camos
That does not work like that. What would you have said if the maps in Cold War were paid DLC? What would you have blamed then?
My main topic would be the lack of creativity and support for the side mode, as well as the fucked up releases in recent years.
Only one game of free DLC is not enough data to prove this.
Free has nothing to do with it, it’s business. Resources would be determined by projections, and Vanguard had to live up to something that changed the game for the franchise, which evidently wasn’t possible. No amount of money or devs etc would have made a difference to Vanguard when time was the resource devs lacked.
It’s dangerously naive to think devs wouldn’t care about something they spent their lives working towards, and post Revelations its a hard act to follow. Lets just hope Treyarch devs have all resources necessary for the next project.
Oh brotherrrrr here we go again
World at War had free DLC on PC and those maps were great
Yeah, I think paid maps were better but I still think Cold War Zombies was very good. The best way to improve COD Zombies would be to give specific guidance on how to do the Easter Egg (a bit like WWII Zombies).
They could have chose to stick with a paid DLC model, and had they produced quality DLC people would have bought it, played it and and reviewed it positively. Had they produced shit DLC, and given the quality of content over the past few years, it likely would have been, then people would complain even more than they currently do. At least by offering free content COD fans don’t feel even more hard done by…
Why are so many of Greg’s takes correct? First he’s a certified Bo3 and Bo4 lover and now this? Bro is out here having the right opinions.
Greg when Treyarch doesnt make the best zombies map during a pandemic and with bareky no funds
Wrong take
It makes zero difference to the actual developers whether the content they’re making is going to be sold as paid DLC or not.
Activision are just pumping all their budget into warzone because its the new cash cow.
Somewhat true but there’s other elements too. We now have 6 DLC seasons instead of 4. The dev time for CW and Vanguard has been awful for the workers themselves (fucking Activision).
And Warzone easily eats up a lot of allocated development time these days.
Bullshit.
ATVI “forcing” 3arc to “rush” from project to project cause some other zobie team couldn’t do their thing properly led to the quality to go to shit.
I really do not understand how people saw the low-budget DLC maps and cutscenes of BO4 and somehow thought Treyarch would do even better *for free.* The writing was on the wall the whole time.
It definitely decreased the quality but it didn’t RUIN them
A post I made in advance of Cold War: “I’m worried we’re gonna get screwed by ‘free DLC’ meaning free-level-quality zombies such as many remade maps”
Well, it turned out to be reused assets rather than remade maps. But yeah, there was no incentive.
Nonsense. The actual developers don’t handle monetisation; that’s entirely managed by the ‘suits’ at Activision.
The reason Zombies and MP have both had a dip in quality, or at least perceived quality anyway, is likely that more development time and focus is going to Warzone. It’s the money-maker, after all.
Free dlc killed the quality of everything in gaming, why would the devs put effort into maps and gamemodes when the only think they’re going to make money off of is skins and bundles?
Disagree. I think the downgrade in quality has more to do with employee attrition and the studios falling more and more behind in their annual cycle. If the DLC was still paid, the outrage would be worse.
It’s true, I thought so as well. Zombie maps were much better when they weren’t free.
The issue isn’t that they’re now free, they just don’t try as hard now.
Free content updates are surprisingly more profitable than paid ones, they just need to make good content
Treyarch ruined zombies
Mfs who paid for die rise💀