User blog:AugFC/Black Ops 3's story - explained

Black Ops III has a pretty confusing plot at face value, and it's not very well explained in-game. Playing through the campaign for the first time, you are led to believe that your character (the "player") is on a super secret mission to stop le evil bad guy Taylor (who is infected with a DNI virus) from leaking le secret classified information, only to get infected with the virus yourself and, by the end of the game, merge identities with Taylor.

That's not what happens, though, and Treyarch are fucking with everybody once again.

The truth is: you're playing as Taylor the whole time. You just don't know it.

Taylor's the bald guy, right? Nope. Taylor is your player character.

That bald guy is actually Dylan Stone, the true antagonist of the game, whose name never even crops up in dialogue.

"Diaz" is Javier Ramirez. "Hall" is Alice Conrad. "Maretti" is Joseph Fierro. All of these characters are long dead before the first mission.

And that's because the first mission is actually the second last - you don't play as your character in the first mission, you play as a faceless, nameless operative of Alpha Team - let's call this operative "Alpha 1". Notice how you never see your character in third person in the opening mission, despite the fact that you choose their appearance beforehand. That's because you're not choosing their appearance, you're choosing Taylor's. "Alpha 1" is a nobody.

For the rest of the game, you are playing as a different character. You're playing as Taylor.

Chronologically, the first mission is the second last mission. It takes place after the leaks, after the deaths of Stone, Ramirez, Conrad and Fierro. The mission is to rescue Egyptian Minister Said and his Lieutenant, Khalil - who not only recognizes Hendricks upon his rescue, but is also referred to as the "hero of the Cairo uprising" - an event that doesn't take place up until mission 9. Guess who gets captured by the NRC on that mission? Khalil.

Mission 1 - "Black Ops" - takes place directly after Mission 9.

The entire game is played out through the distorted memories of Taylor.

I'll try to explain in chronological order.

Taylor is a veteran soldier who is selected for a new Winslow Accord special forces group, under the direct command of one Jacob Hendricks. The other selected candidates for this team include Javier Ramirez, Alice Conrad, Joseph Fierro and Dylan Stone. They're all trained by Hendricks in Zurich. This serves as the basis for the second mission of the game - "New World".

After training is done, Taylor and Hendricks operate together for five years, under the command of Rachel Kane. Stone leads another team, with Ramirez, Conrad and Fierro under his command. His team goes off the grid in Singapore, and it's Taylor and Hendricks who are tasked with tracking them down. They soon learn that Stone has defected to the CDP, and leaked vast amounts of classified CIA information. They catch Ramirez in the act of leaking more files and kill him, but the rest of Stone's team escapes to Egypt in search of Dr. Salim. This serves as the basis for missions 3, 4, 5 and 6.

In Egypt, Taylor and Hendricks are introduced to Lieutenant Khalil of the Egyptian Army, who has Salim captive. Stone uses an NRC assault as an oppurtunity to slip into the Egyptian Army base and snatch Salim, while Taylor, Khalil and Hendricks fight off the NRC. They try to track down Salim but instead find Alice Conrad, who Taylor interrogates and kills. Hendricks becomes increasingly disullisioned with killing the operatives he trained himself and starts to lose focus, which Taylor and Kane notice. This serves as the basis for missions 7 and 8.

The information extracted from Conrad leads Taylor, Hendricks and Kane to offshore liquefiers under NRC control, where Stone and Fierro are located. Hendricks and Taylor assist the Egyptian Army in a massive assault on the liquefiers and locate Fierro, who is killed by Taylor. Stone narrowly escapes. During this mission, Kane saves Taylor's life and the two start a relationship. This serves as the basis for mission 9.

Stone's location is pinpointed to the Lotus Towers in Cairo - the NRC's Egyptian command post. The NRC are protecting Stone and Khalil does not have enough men to take on the NRC, so Taylor publicly assassinates one of the NRC's top generals to inspire a civilian uprising amongst the Egyptian people. While the NRC are distracted by this, Taylor and Hendricks slip into Lotus Towers to capture Stone. Meanwhile, Khalil is caputured by the NRC and Taylor promises Kane that he/she will recuse him after dealing with Stone. Taylor tracks down Stone, who retaliates by commanding a Mothership, which Taylor destroys, but sustains critical injuries in the process. While injured, Stone almost kills Taylor, but Hendricks arrives just in time and shoots Stone twice in the head. This serves as the basis for mission 10.

The mission is complete. Stone and his team are all dead. Taylor is rescued by Hendricks and, due to his/her crippling injuries, is augmented with robotic limbs. He/she is selected for the "Cyber Soldier" program. Hendricks volunteers for this, despite being in good health. They are both fitted with DNIs. However, Taylor's relationship with Kane falls through and the two seperate.

Taylor learns that Stone's team defected because they found evidence that the CIA was implicated in human experiments in Singapore that backfired and claimed the lives of over 300,000 people.

Taylor and Hendricks are called back into action to rescue the Egyptian Minister Said, who is being held in Ethiopa by the NRC. Joining them is a new recruit - this is the character you play as in the mission - let's call them "Alpha 1". The mission is a success; Said is rescued, along with Lieutenant Khalil, the "hero of the Cairo uprising". However, during their escape from Ethiopa, Alpha 1 is dismembered by NRC robots and rescued by Taylor. This serves as the basis for the first mission, but chronologically it's the penultimate mission.

Taylor recommends Alpha 1 for the Cyber Soldier program, but Alpha 1 dies during the augmentation process. His/her conciousness survives on the DNI network.

But the DNI network is infected with a virus - controlled by Corvus, the rogue AI system. Corvus infects Taylor's DNI with Alpha 1's conciousness and Taylor's memories become muddled. He/she starts to believe that they are Alpha 1. Taylor's recollection of previous events is scrambled. This is the version of events that plays out during Black Ops III - the distorted memories being generated by Taylor's malfunctioning DNI.

Hendricks is also affected by the virus and goes crazy. Corvus shows him the reason that Stone's team defected - because of the illegal human experimentation that led to the development of the DNI system - and he goes to the Coalesence HQ to kill the man responsible, Sebastian Kruger. Taylor (thinking he/she is Alpha 1) and Kane are sent to stop him.

This is the final mission of the game - "Life". Kane dies, Hendricks kills Kruger, Taylor kills Hendricks, and then, after some fuckery from Corvus in the DNI system, Taylor wipes his/her own DNI to stop Corvus from spreading.

Taylor's DNI successfully wipes itself. Everything on the DNI system - Corvus, Hendricks, Alpha 1 - they're all wiped. Taylor finally remembers who he/she really is.

Hence why, at the end of the game, when the player is asked their name - they respond with "Taylor".

There are several hints at this throughout the campaign, but the solid evidence is the scrolling text that appears at the start of each mission. If you pause the text and read it, it explains exactly what really happened during each mission, from the perspective of Taylor. The events of the missions themselves are unreliable - they are the corrupted memories of Taylor, believing himself to be Alpha 1, thanks to his DNI.

Thoughts?