Corvus

"I. Am. Not. A. Mistake!"

- Corvus to Sebastian Krueger within the Frozen Forest.

Corvus is the main antagonist of Call of Duty Black Ops III. It is a conscious artificial intelligence created by a bug in Direct Neural Interface software. It is responsible for deaths of many characters (in Player's dream sequence) in the game.

It also appears in Dead Ops Arcade 2: Cyber's Avengening as a special kind of zombie called the Shadow Boogie. When he spawns, ravens will enter the area and make him appear. Besides how he looks, he acts like a regular zombie with small teleportation abilities.

History
Corvus's consciousness was created after the AI that was supposed to control soldiers with DNI collected memories and knowledge of human test subjects in a CIA black project, but killed the scientists in charge of the project with Nova 6 as soon as it became sentient. Corvus created the Frozen Forest, a simulation of life after death. In Player's dream sequence, Corvus then corrupted the minds of John Taylor, Sarah Hall, Peter Maretti and Sebastian Diaz, making them do actions against their will.

The Player hears Corvus' voice for the first time after entering into Hall's mind, which was infected by it. The Player was forced to kill Taylor's team, though Taylor himself ripped his DNI out of his head to rebel against Corvus, becoming an electronic bug in the Frozen Forest as a result. However, Jacob Hendricks, who was infected by Corvus after interfacing with Diaz during the mission at the abandoned Coalescence facility in Singapore, kills Taylor. In the course of leaving to stop Hendricks, Rachel Kane was killed by Nova 6 in accordance with a trap set by Corvus. Eventually, Corvus made Hendricks kill Sebastian Krueger, the last remaining alive person involved in the project which created Corvus. In order to destroy it, the Player commits suicide after killing Hendricks in retaliation for killing Kruger and is reunited with Hendricks and Taylor in the Frozen Forest. Hendricks abandons the Player, but Taylor stays to fight along side the Player. As Taylor revealed, Corvus did not have any overarching goals, but merely wanted to expand as much as possible.

Corvus wanted answers about his existence. Krueger, who was captured in the Frozen Forest after his death, told it that it was a mistake, and that it was never supposed to be born. Those words enraged Corvus, who then violently kills Krueger. Taylor tells the Player that the only way to defeat it is to purge the DNI. The Player and Taylor chase Corvus through his virtual simulations. The Player manages to regain control of their body and purge their DNI, destroying Corvus. However, it remains unclear whether Corvus entered into Player's mind before the DNI was purged.

Reality
The Player had died follow surgery complications during the events of "New World". Because the facility Corvus was trapped in was destroyed before Taylor and his team got their DNIs, Corvus was never able to escape the facility and remains trapped there.

Trivia

 * Corvus is the name of the genus of birds including jackdaws, ravens and crows. Thus someone with a DNI that's been hijacked by Corvus frequently has visions of crows.
 * Additionally, Corvus is the name of the protagonist of the Raven Software game Heretic and Heretic II.