Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was not the first Modern Warfare game to experiment with the idea of zombies. The Call of Duty series has come a long way since its first game. What started as a World War 2 shooter, allowing players to experience some of history’s biggest moments first-hand, eventually evolved into something cinematic and less historical. The series would shift into the modern day and even the far flung future with interstellar battles and robots. In its hayday, Call of Duty introduced one of its biggest pillars: a co-op mode where you fight the undead. After this, Call of Duty refused to ship a new entry without some kind of co-op mode but Zombies was by far and away the most popular co-op mode in Call of Duty.
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The series was able to appeal to tons of people as a result, grabbing people who wanted a cinematic story, an arcade-y multiplayer mode, and a fun, repetitive co-op mode that continued to evolve to great degrees with each entry. However, the Modern Warfare series was very anti-Zombies as it felt too tonally jarring for a series that was trying to be contemporary and somewhat grounded, particularly in the rebooted series. However, it seems no one really cares anymore as Modern Warfare 3 features a massive Zombies experience with an open-world map and the highest player count the mode has seen to date. This almost happened much sooner, though. As spotted by Modern Warzone, former Infinity Ward co-op director Brian Bright confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) was meant to feature Zombies. The team had hundreds of zombie AI and was similar to what we see in Modern Warfare 3. Unfortunately, the higher-ups at Infinity Ward weren’t convinced this could gel with the gritty, realistic tone of the game so it was scrapped.
This may explain why the Spec-Ops mode in the last two Modern Warfare games felt a bit aimless and half-baked. It seems like the team was a bit more passionate in the undead and the Spec-Ops stuff was created to ensure there was a co-op mode in the game. While fans have been a bit mixed on the Zombies in Modern Warfare 3, it ultimately seems like something that Treyarch and Sledgehammer are committed to fleshing out. Whether or not any future Modern Warfare games will feature a Zombies mode remains to be seen, but it is a bit difficult to see them going back to Spec-Ops as fans are enjoying the Zombies grind a bit more.
