Call of Duty Black Ops III’s campaign is the weakest of the original trilogy and has been widely regarded as one of the worst Call of Duty campaigns in recent memory.
While the campaign is not bad, Call of Duty Black Ops II fans expected something that would match and possibly surpass the former.
While Call of Duty Black Ops III’s campaign is not terrible, it lacks the pacing and character development enjoyed by the previous (and subsequent) Call of Duty campaigns.
Upon release of the 5th and final DLC (Zombie Chronicles), Call of Duty®: Black Ops III was removed from sale on all digital platforms and replaced with Call of Duty®: Black Ops III – Zombies Chronicles Edition, a move which saw new players able to essentially get the 5th DLC for free, while longtime players were forced to purchase it separately.
Image credit Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Published by Activision and developed by Treyarch.
Treyarch is traditionally known as the best Call of Duty studio regarding long-term support. Generally, they continue to support their Call of Duty titles long beyond what has come to be expected for the franchise.
While many games and franchises see updates for several years after launch, that is not the case with Call of Duty titles, with most failing to receive much in the way of year two content.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III received new content up until June 2018, which saw the addition of 2 new game modes, as well as new loot items; after this content update, players were given a final update in July 2018, which attempted to address remaining balance issues before the team were fully reassigned to other projects.
Part of Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s longevity can be attributed to the Zombie Chronicles DLC (2017); for a Call of Duty title to receive substantial DLC 18 months after launch was at the time unheard of, and to this day, no other Call of Duty title has received such a massive content drop so late in its lifespan.
Image credit Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Published by Activision and developed by Treyarch.
While the developers do not condone modding, that has not stopped the PC community from becoming a veritable Map factory, with thousands of players opting to play community-made creations over Call of Duty: Black Ops III’s developer-created offerings.
While this sounds wonderful, players should be aware that downloading unofficial clients and patches can result in your computer being exploited, a risk that some are willing to take. Still, I would advise against it unless you are confident in your ability to tell the difference between a legitimate mod created by a passionate community member and a fake mod created by hackers to infect your PC with malware.
Image credit Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Published by Activision and developed by Treyarch.
While most veteran players look back on Call of Duty’s Jetpack phase with a wince, I cannot help but feel that while the traditional COD Formula should have remained untouched, there is room for “Jetpack COD” games with increased agility and gadget-focused combat, even if that means splitting the Call of Duty universe between more grounded titles and those set in the far future.
Mainline Call of Duty titles should always be a “boots on the ground” expierance as that is what the fans expect; however, not every Call of Duty title needs to be a “mainline title”, and I hope now that Xbox owns the franchise, they will at least explore the possibility of expanding the scope of the franchise beyond a yearly premium shooter and free-2-play battle royale (mobile titles not included), allowing the developers to explore new ways to experience Call of Duty, without jeopardising the success of the mainline franchise, and its veteran community who knows what they like, and will not easily accept major changes to a formula they have loved for almost 20 years.
While I would love to see experimental Call of Duty titles again, I certainly do not want them to take the place of mainline releases, as while mainline Call of Duty games are similar, there is a reason for that: they are well made, offer amazing gunplay, and despite 9th generation price increases, offer an excellent dollar per hour ratio of play, with most players playing more than 300 hours per year, and many players enjoying multiples of that number, which in my mind is excellent value for money, even when factoring in the cost of the base game and optional seasonal battle passes.
Image credit Call of Duty: Black Ops III - Published by Activision and developed by Treyarch.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision, it was released on 5 November 2015 and retails for $59.99.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is no longer in active development, and the developers have moved on to other projects.
As of November 2023, around 160,000 people play Call of Duty: Black Ops III on a fairly regular basis.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is very active, meaning that very short matchmaking times and even instant matchmaking are possible in populated regions, while less popular regions enjoy stable but less instantaneous matchmaking.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops III community is split between the Playstation, Xbox and PC ecosystems and lacks crossplay, resulting in 3 very different-sized communities.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops III Community on PC is the smallest of the three, with daily highs of 5000-6000 concurrent players online; unfortunately, the vast majority (90%+ according to the in-game browser) of players only play the Team Deathmatch mode, with other multiplayer modes being varying between completely dead and almost entirely dead.
On the zombies front, despite having the most impressive selection of zombie maps in the franchise’s history, only the most popular base game maps are active, meaning that only those maps and modes that come with the base game have sustainable numbers to ensure matchmaking even at peak times.
The Call of Duty: Black Ops III Community on PlayStation is the largest of the three, partially due to being given away with PS Plus and part of the PlayStation Plus Collection for PlayStation 5 owners.
While Team Deathmatch is still the “mode of choice” for most players on the PlayStation, several other modes still receive enough player attention to ensure active matchmaking.
In addition, the Zombies mode is doing well, with the most popular maps being available to play for much of the day.
The Xbox community, while being larger than the PC community, pales in comparison to the PlayStation community; however, while Team Deathmatch is the “mode of choice” for most players, full lobbies can still be found for other popular modes during peak hours.
Fortunately for Zombies players, the Xbox community, the Call of Duty: Black Ops III Zombies community is currently doing rather well.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III supports:
Call of Duty: Black Ops III offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is rated PEGI 18+ and contains the following:
Call of Duty Black Ops III is a decent game. While its attempt to cash in on the success of Titanfall resulted in an identity crisis, it is still well worth playing for fans of the franchise.
It is also unmissable for Call of Duty Zombies fans, with the Zombie Chronicles DLC offering eight remastered maps from previous games such as Ascension (Black Ops I) and Shi No Numa (World at War & Black Ops I).
