It doesn’t really need to be explained that Black Ops 4’s content cycle was cut short, with the Chaos storyline being snubbed and Aether being rushed. However, I haven’t seen many people actually try to piece together what the original plans would’ve been in retrospect. **So let’s try!**
First, we have to establish a few things..
1. **Tag Der Toten was always the final map. There was no Great War.** This one is common sense, the map is literally called “Day of the Dead” – it’s the perfect sendoff. It’s obvious the Great War was going to play a bigger role in the ending (likely a boss fight or playable segment), but it was relegated to a slideshow cutscene. Still, it’s undeniably the END, and the set up for the next game’s storyline (Dark Aether).
2. **”Zombies Chronicles 2″ was never a thing. A second Black Ops Pass was.** Also super obvious, the whole point of the Black Ops Pass was to sell content passes for MP and ZM per year. The mechanics and lore of Black Ops 4 simply doesn’t support ZC-style remasters, the whole point of Black Ops 4 was reimagining previous maps to finish the storyline.
Anyway, with that established, we’re going to use **the 4-4-4 rule**. Activision tends to have clean schedules for DLC maps, and this works perfectly here. 2 Aether maps and 2 Chaos maps at launch. Then, two seperate Black Ops Passes for both the Aether and Chaos stoylines. 12 maps in total.
# Black Ops Pass Year 1
Self explantory, this was going to be all-chaos! Makes perfect sense all things considered. It was originally advertised as such and works within the 4-4-4 rule. You can infinitely speculate on what the last two maps’s were.. Paris, Atlantis. The Library of Alexandria, etc. Chances are they were most definitely in full development as Treyarch is extremely far-ahead of their DLC schedule.
It’s worth noting they were planning Chaos maps set witihn Morocco and Russia, but they were presumably scrapped before launch and had their lore turned into the comics.
# Black Ops Pass Year 2
Okay, so are you ready for this? I am extremely confident that the second Black Ops Pass would’ve been (in order) **Alpha Omega**, **Tranzit**, **Buried** and then **Tag Der Toten**.
To me, this makes perfect sense. Alpha Omega finishes up the Ultimus/Primis plot from Classified and re-introduces TEDD, which leads to Victis teleporting to Tranzit from Blood of the Dead – then Buried, before being used as pawns within Tag’s ending. Boom. But now you’re thinking.. where’s Die Rise?
# Treyarch Always Knew
Tranzit is a famous map, it’s everywhere in Black Ops 4, from the Bus and lava in Multiplayer maps, to the Diner in Blackout and TEDD returning as a character. The entirety of Buried and the maze are remade in Blackout. Tranzit also [had concept sketches released to Youtubers during Zombies Chronicles](https://youtu.be/PpQh7zxlM2I) and parts of Buried were featured within Revelations. And yet, absolutely no Die Rise.
I really believe Die Rise was never going to be included in Black Ops 4. It’s nowhere. Never mentioned, never really teased, it’s the most unpopular Victis experience and doesn’t fit within our established 4 rule. I can totally see them excluding Die Rise to focus on the two ultra-popular levels.
It would also likely drag on having three Victis experiences in a row, however it’s possible they still played around with the idea.. making Alpha Omega an ugly duckly within our 4s rule; not impossible but OCD-triggering for sure.
# So Basically, They Cut The Filler
For some odd reason, people assumed the Victis maps would take place after Tag Der Toten.. which makes zero sense, Tag was always the end and the setup for the next Call of Duty Zombies. That’s like if Tranzit released in Black Ops 1 after the ending of Moon. Defeats the whole point of sequel-bait.
A combination of fleeting time, budget and resouces caused them to scrap the Chaos content and smash the two most important (and likely most developed) maps into a shared Black Ops Pass. From this perspective, the final product of Black Ops 4 Zombies isn’t too bad, but their original plans do make a lot more sense all things considered.
From Victis in the pods to TEDD returning, the Alpha Omega characters and everything that goes down in Tag – it does really seem like Jason had all the plot threads set up, they just fell apart. That’s my best attempt to match things together at least; perhaps some lore-nerds would know more!