We’ve all got something we’re completely, massively obsessed with. For me, Call of Duty Zombies has been a huge interest of mine since World at War’s Nacht Der Untoten terrified me in 2008. Treyarch’s latest turn at rejuvenating the popular survival mode arrives with Black Ops 6, but I can’t help but feel that Activision is overlooking a potential goldmine for the Zombies community – and its own pockets, of course. I need the abandoned COD Zombies mobile app to return.
If you owned an iOS device in 2011, like the good old iPod Touch, you likely came across this underrated FPS game on the App Store. Originally launched as Call of Duty: World at War Zombies, developer Ideaworks Game Studio brought Treyarch’s horde mode to the small screen – and it was really damn good for the time. Pushing Apple’s hardware to the limit, this pocket-sized slice of guns, guts, and gore gave me my Zombies fix until I could get online with my friends to play the real deal.
Although it started out as something to satiate my need for Zombies action away from my console, its sequel really elevated what Zombies fans could expect on mobile. Kino Der Toten, Ascension, and even a ‘director’s cut’ of Call of the Dead glistened in iPhone glory. Despite the promising concept of a standalone Zombies experience, the app was sadly delisted in 2018, one year before Call of Duty: Mobile would launch. But COD: Mobile’s own replacement for Zombies in the free mobile game, is well, pretty shit.
Similar to Call of Duty: Vanguard, a woeful misstep in Treyarch’s otherwise sturdy repertoire, this version of COD Zombies feels ironically lifeless. A husk of what players like myself love about shredding down hordes of the undead. Yet, Activision is insistent on getting Call of Duty out there on every platform possible. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is headed to Xbox Cloud Gaming after all, meaning I can somewhat replicate my time with this long-lost app on my iPhone.
But it won’t be the same. COD Zombies has always been deserving of its own standalone experience, a notion that community legends ‘MrRoflWaffles’ and ‘NoahJ456’ shared with me when I spoke to them earlier this year. There’s an untapped area that would thrive in the current mobile gaming landscape, at least for COD fans. Mobile titles are objectively better than ever, with advancements in the best gaming phones making it possible for triple-A games to be playable in the palm of your hand. I’ve been at odds with Call of Duty since 2020, as every release after the excellent Black Ops Cold War hasn’t quite lived up to the mark in hindsight.
Yet, Activision’s insistence on cross-platform integration has appealed to me. Sharing my weapons and operators from Modern Warfare 3 on my PS5 to COD: Mobile is a major win. As is the shared progression, with each experience rewarding me for the time I’m able to sink in, no matter how big or small the session is. An overhauled Call of Duty: Zombies mobile game has the chance to capitalize on this, while welcoming a whole new legion of players who might not be that privy to dropping $70 on a full COD game.
New features in Black Ops 6 like being able to save your progress in a solo session have me salivating like a hellhound. The prospect of preserving my progress on an easter egg hunt or a high-round game is a great step forward for the mode. Imagine if you could continue that game on your phone. Those are the kinds of player-friendly decisions Activision could be making, not to mention what it could introduce content-wise.
Mobile-exclusive maps aren’t new for this franchise, which is why you’ll see me occasionally dropping into Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile to relive the glory days of Verdansk. Chuck in a few classic maps similar to Black Ops 3’s Zombies Chronicles expansion and there’s a solid foundation to get stuck into. We’re also seeing once-cancelled maps return in COD: Mobile, as Activision digs into the vaults to give them a new lease of life. There’s no reason why a potential COD Zombies mobile game resurrection couldn’t benefit in the same way.
The future of Call of Duty Zombies hangs in the balance with Black Ops 6, and expectations are incredibly high from me and YouTube legends. With Microsoft and Activision pushing Call of Duty into an era where it’s essentially everywhere, a return to this small-screen app could be a large-scale victory.