Well, the internet had a serious meltdown after the final cutscene in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies, and, well, people have thoughts. The clip was posted by CharlieINTEL, and this is apparently the return of the OG crew- Richtofen, Dempsey, Takeo, and Nikolai, who one would think had already been put to rest after the events of Black Ops 4. Yeah, you guessed it. The boys are back, and the COD crowd is divided between absolute joy and utter confusion.
So first of all, let’s just address the elephant in the room: HOW are those characters alive? The ending of Black Ops 4 was pretty much straightforward- Primis and Ultimis got wiped out to break the cycle. Yet, here they are, standing tall like nothing happened. Some gamers are theorizing if it’s a multiverse thing (because, you know time travel and zombies don’t exactly follow logic), while others are throwing around Lazy Retcon as excuses to keep hype rolling for Black Ops 7. One player, @Thewolfamonggus, shot this out: “This is how they get you guys to buy BO7. This is how they get you to keep this wheel of dogshit meaningless hype turning.” Ouch.
The other half of the crowd is scrubbing their hands in excitement. @IICHIIBANN screamed, “HOLY F NO WAY THE GOATS ARE BACK!!!” Meanwhile, @0kElysyum said: “Someone on Reddit actually predicted this months ago.” @MeshiachNWO said: “People will say it doesn’t make sense but no s Sherlock- multiverses, time travel, zombies… how can it make sense?” Well put.
Then there were some unamused few: @SimmonsfoMVP jabbed: “No one cares about zombies anymore, of course they keep using the old characters as an attempt to keep people interested.” @isaiah13b brushed it off, adding, “That doesn’t make sense, but it’s okay because the rest of the game is ass.” Brutal.
Theories fly this way and that way as some consider this a new timeline (shoutout to @IcyNimbus), while others like @MatinaComics feel that Dark Aether, where everything ended up in BO4, might be how they come back. Then there’s @BellyFood50, seriously delving into lore talk about the Agarthan device and “only half of Nikolai’s wishes coming true.” That’s profoundly serious stuff.
But then the real question is: does any of this even matter? The Zombies storyline has been a big old mess of alternate dimensions, time loops, and magical artifacts for years. At this point, Treyarch could come out with, “Oh, by the way, Richtofen was actually a sentient ham sandwich the whole time,” and half the fanbase would just nod along with it and say, “Yeah, that tracks.”
One thing to be said is-however you feel about it, this cutscene has people talking. And with Black Ops 6 yet to be revealed, you can be sure this wild one won’t be the last twist Treyarch throws at us. Now, Ahem, I’m just gonna rewatch this clip 20 more times and pretend I understand it.
So yeah. Zombies lore remains as confusing as ever, but hey, at least we got the crew back. Maybe. Unless they are clones. Or ghosts. Or ham sandwiches. Who knows?
