Zombie


 * For the game mode, see Zombies (Mode).

"I've always liked the "monster within" idea. I like the zombies being us. It's like zombies are the blue-collar monsters."

- George A. Romero.

Zombies are deceased humans reanimated by Element 115 and are the primary antagonists of the game mode of the same name.

Creation
Though the origin of the zombies remains mostly unclear, various incidents leading up to the creation of the zombies can be found via radio messages found in various maps. It would appear that Element 115, an element found in meteors and known to power Wonder Weapons, can reanimate dead cells. A meteor containing 115 is shown in the map Shi no Numa outside one of the swamp areas. Meteor fragments can be seen on Kino der Toten and Call of the Dead. Meteors can also be seen on the moon whenever it is visible.

While working with Element 115 to power new weapons and the teleporters, Dr. Ludvig Maxis discovered it could also reanimate dead cells and created an undead army. Unfortunately, this army couldn't be controlled as the zombies would always go berserk when tested. Richtofen believed Maxis wasn't acting quick enough and decided to betray him to further the research.

One day, Maxis used his daughter Samantha's dog, Fluffy (who was pregnant), as a test subject for his teleporter. Unfortunately something went horribly wrong and Fluffy transformed into the first Hellhound. After this event his assistant, Richtofen set his plan into motion when he locked Maxis and Samantha in the teleporter room with the mutated Fluffy, who then killed them.

Hellhounds are dogs that appear in both Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty: Black Ops, both as a special type of enemy seperate from normal zombies. They are a vicious and murderous type of enemy that appears on Shi No Numa and Der Reise on World at War as well as appearing on Black Ops in Kino der Toten. A rumble of thunder and an ominous guitar note will be heard at the start of a "Hellround." On these rounds, the arena becomes foggy. They are the puppies of Fluffy, Samantha's pet dog who Richtofen and Maxis turned into the "Original Hellhound." They possess the ability to teleport (but only use it to appear on the map), and they appear with a bolt of lightning marking where they spawned at. The ground rumbles when a Hellhound has spawned nearby. They are weaker in terms of attack power and health than normal zombies, as well as in terms of maximum attack power and health, but are also much faster and will much more easily surround players. After round 15 on Der Riese, Hellhounds spawn at the same time but also still get seperate rounds where they appear alone. When Hellrounds are over, a Max Ammo is dropped. When a Hellround ends on Der Riese and Kino der Toten, "Beauty of Annihilation" is heard. The same goes for "Thief" rounds on "Five" and Monkey rounds on Ascension.

"Five" and Kino der Toten, both from Call of Duty: Black Ops, feature a new kind of zombie called the Crawler Zombie. The Crawler Zombie is a zombie that crawls on all fours (hands and feet). It emits an "aura" of Nova Gas, which is far weaker than Nova 6, as it only impairs vision and movement, whereas Nova 6 basically kills instantly by causing burns, vomiting, and other ailments to whoever inhales / contacts its. Upon death, Crawler Zombies explode, releasing Nova Gas. If a Crawler Zombie is killed by a Ray Gun, Thunder Gun, explosives, or is killed by an attack from a combat knife, it will not emit Nova Gas. Apparently, the Crawler Zombies were a failed experiment by Ludwig Maxis, according to Dr. Edward Richtofen. Some people have speculated that the Crawler Zombies, due to the fact that they emit Nova Gas and appear to be Nova 6 victims, are possibly people killed by Nova 6 that were reanimated by Element 115 into Zombies.

Ascension features its own all-new, exclusive "special round" enemy, the Space Monkeys. Space Monkeys are monkeys from the Soviet Union's Space Program that came into contact with Element 115 when they were sent to the moon. In-game, they appear in the same manner as the Hellhounds that they replaced, there is a misconception that in order for them to be able to appear, the player(s) would have to have a perk. To have a perk, the player first has to turn on the power. When a Space Monkey round begins, the map turns a purplish-color for a moment, then the map turns dark-orange. The rumbling guitar note from Hellrounds will be heard as well. Space Monkeys will appear and try to steal the player's perks by jumping onto and attacking the perk machines. Grenades are ineffective against the monkeys, as the monkeys will just throw your grenades back at you. If they are all killed before they can even touch a perk machine, they will drop a Max Ammo, and a power-up, the Random Perk Bottle, which gives the player a free perk (although this perk must be guarded as well as the other perks).

In Call of the Dead, George A. Romero appears as a "special guest" boss zombie that follows the players around. He will continually follow players until he is killed, rendering camping effective only for, at most, a minute or two. He is very difficult to kill as he will into a "berserk" state and sprint after players when he is hit, although the water areas can be used to calm him down by running into them with George chasing you. Insta-Kill and the Nuke are completely useless against him, and he will simply laugh when hit by a Nuke. He can also emit a special yell that causes all zombies in the vicinity to go into a very fast sprint, a feature not seen since Zombie Verruckt (Zombies on that map could sprint, but they sprinted when they spawned, rather than requiring a certain event to occur). Nearby Zombies can absorb the electricity emitted from the stage light that he carries around as a weapon, and use it to stun the player. When he dies, he will drop the Death Machine and the Random Perk Bottle. If the player that killed him has performed the Original Characters Trapped Easter Egg, he will instead drop the Lightning Bolt, which appears as a Death Machine, but when grabbed, is actually Call of Duty: World at War's Wunderwaffe DG-2. He can come back from the dead, however.

In the upcoming zombie map, Shangri-La, zombies will have a civilian skin, possibly from the Himilayas as well as female zombies and Monkey Zombies which will be able to take power-ups and change them to another one.

Speeds
The Zombies have varying speeds and movements, one of which is exclusive to Ascension. These speeds are:


 * A very slow march.
 * A slow stumble with arms by their sides.
 * In Shi No Numa, zombies might stumble around in a kung-fu style.
 * A normal walk with their arms waving in the air and their faces glancing upward at the sky.
 * A jog with arms straight out (like Frankenstein and in older classic Zombie films).
 * A fast run. Their arms move back and forth, similar to a human.
 * A sprint, with one arm in front of them pointing down and the other behind them in the air.
 * In Verrückt and Call of the Dead, some zombies have a human sprint-like speed with their shoulders forward and arms moving as a person would while running (although to less of an extent). These are considerably faster than any other speed, and run at roughly the same speed that the player does with a high-mobility weapon (without sprinting). Any other gun class requires the player to sprint in order to not get caught by them. In Call of the Dead, zombies are brought into this speed when George A. Romero emits a special yell.
 * In Ascension, on some occasions, zombies will crouch down and roll towards the player, or even sidestep to avoid getting hit.

Behavior
The zombies seem to have reverted to a primal cognitive state, as they will try to kill or at least incapacitate any player through melee attacks. They do not use weapons. Either they can't, or they have enough intelligence to be able to choose not to. Even when one or both legs of the zombie are blown off, it will still attempt to kill the player. The zombies also show an odd behavioral characteristic in that they will stop attacking a player when he's downed, instead going for the player(s) that are still alive. The reason behind this is unknown, although it may be done in-game so that that player who is downed has at least a chance of being revived by his teammates. Some believe it is to leave the downed player to an agonizing death and to use them as bait to distract the other players, since players cannot defend themselves while reviving teammates (unless they press triangle\Y). With a zombie kidnapping George A. Romero instead of killing him, it is possible that the Zombies know of Element 115's effects and somehow use it to turn incapacitated people into zombies, thus explaining why they do not kill downed players. As shown by the secret Der Riese radio messages and the Black Ops computer files, the Zombies were meant to be controlled, but they would always end up going berserk, disobeying orders given to them.

Characteristics
Some zombies will die from only a few rounds from the M1911 handgun, while other zombies can withstand up to or over a full magazine of a machine gun. This depends on the round the player is on, as the zombies have more health in later rounds, and depends on the map as well, as Verruckt's zombies gain strength faster. The zombies also look different from each other. Some look as if they were burned to death, others look intimidating, while others are missing arms, or even have exposed bloody rib-cages. If a player shoots at a zombie's arm, it may fly off, and their rib cage will be exposed. On Verrückt, zombies sometimes appear to have staples inserted into their head, giving the assumption they died during surgery inside the Asylum. Most zombies in Black Ops have decomposed faces and have a slight change in their speed compared to other zombies. On Ascension, the zombies' faces seem to have warped much more than before. For instance, some zombies have a type of gas mask and their flesh sags in many places on their face. In Call of the Dead, the Zombies are even more warped than the Ascension Zombies. Some have no jaw, and some will spawn with missing limbs, without the player gibbing them, and they have either charred black or frozen white skin, ripped sailor uniforms, civilian attire, or burned scuba suits (though it could be that they were stuck under water for quite some time). On Ascension and Call of the Dead, after killed, the zombie's eyes will turn normal as if it was never zombified. This is different from the earlier zombies, whose eyes kept their glow, but the glow became dimmer. For example, on the Black Ops Zombies maps "Five" and Kino der Toten, a Zombie's eyes will glow blue or white upon death. On the DS version of Black Ops, the zombies in The Temple have a rifle impaled through their bodies. In Shangri-La, zombies appear to be more infected then they ever looked, and very skinny, the zombies tend to be more infected in the mouth and neck area. Some who were not wearing shirts, have tattoos all over their back, some also wear some brownish suit.

Health
The health of zombies increases with every round. Zombies start with 150 health on Round 1, and gain 100 health every round until Round 10. Upon reaching Round 10, their health is given a 1.1x multiplier. Put simply, the previous round's health is divided by 10, and the resulting number is added to the previous round's health.

Examples: Round 9 health = 950. (950/10) + 950 = 1045 health in Round 10

Round 23 health = 3606. (3606/10) + 3606 = 3966 health in Round 24

Round 41 health = 20057. (20057/10) + 20057 = 22062 health in Round 42

This results in an exponential growth in zombie health, culminating at 5.5 million health in Round 100.

Trivia

 * Some Zombies are seen marching in a Nazi goose step towards the windows in Verrückt, Der Riese and Kino der Toten.
 * In World at War, if a Grenade is thrown at a zombie about to come out the ground, it will go into a crouching stance, this crouching stance can be achieved in Black Ops, but only in extreme cases of lag as the zombie is coming out of the ground.
 * Technically, zombies are not unarmed. They are equipped with the weapon "BRAAAINS..." available through console commands. This, however, is only a Melee weapon, and if the zombies didn't have it, their attack would look like the standard melee attack for humans, without the knife in the hand.
 * The Zombie AI is programmed to follow and attack whichever player is closest to it. This is the most apparent when their head is shot off and they still move towards the player and attempt to attack them.
 * When in water, the Zombies lose very little of their speed.
 * Any headless Zombie will continue to take damage every second until they die, upon which the full 100 points for the headshot is awarded. On higher rounds, a headless zombie may still have enough health to survive low-damage attacks.
 * In Dead Ops Arcade, the zombies have eyes that glow red as opposed to the yellow glow in other levels. Gary Okeys (developer) stated that the reason for this is variation in the different zombies that the players will face.
 * In Black Ops when the Zombies are alive their eyes are a orange/yellow colour, but when their killed they go white.
 * The Female Zombies in the map Shangri-La are the second female enemy of the Call of Duty series, the first being Castro's Mistress.