Call of Duty: Black Ops III

"Call of Duty: Black Ops III deploys players into a dark, twisted future where a new breed of Black Ops soldiers emerges and the lines are blurred between our own humanity and the technology we created to stay ahead, in a world where cutting-edge military robotics define warfare. With three unique game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies, providing fans with the deepest and most ambitious Call of Duty ever."

- Official Description

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is a first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch for Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Windows and Beenox and Mercenary Technology for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was announced on February 5th, 2015 and officially named on April 9th of the same year. The official, full gameplay reveal was shown on April 26th, 2015, and the game was officially released on November 6th. Black Ops III is the twelfth game in the Call of Duty franchise and Treyarch's first to be developed in a three-year development cycle.

It is the fourth main game in the Black Ops series, following Call of Duty: World at War, Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

It is the first Call of Duty game for which downloadable content, including Beta Access, is available first on PlayStation consoles. The Beta was released for PlayStation 4 on August 19th, and ended on August 23rd. The Xbox One and PC BETA version was released on August 25th and ended on August 30th.

Development
On February 4th, during DICE, Treyarch head Mark Lamia gave a presentation about the Zombies Mode found in Treyarch's Call of Duty games. He touched upon its importance to Treyarch as a company establishing its identity, how it built up the company's relationship with its fans, and the opportunities the mode's success brought to Treyarch. At the end of the presentation, Lamia claimed Treyarch was excited to "continue the journey" with its fans, confirming that Zombies mode will return in the next Call of Duty.

On April 6th, a small title update for Black Ops II added in the Snapchat icon to an image in the game. The image itself was present on a similar poster found in the maps Plaza and Express. Upon scanning the image with the application "Snapchat", Call of Duty would be added as a friend. Later, Call of Duty updated their story with a 10 second video showing three clips, along with a narrator saying, "Listen only to the sound of my voice". Throughout the following weeks, Call of Duty updated their story with different videos of varying length, displaying the hidden narrator talking about a "program" and "Test Subjects". Different images shown at the end of select videos revealed a "Trident" logo, and the name "Dr. Salim".

A teaser confirming Black Ops III to be the next Call of Duty was released on 9th April, along with the date of a reveal trailer being released on 26th April. The reveal trailer had the song "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones.

Campaign
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is set 40 years after the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Call of Duty: Black Ops III follows up on the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, specifically in regards to the drone strikes of 2025 that took place by hands of Raul Menendez near the end of the game. The year is now 2065 and technology is irrevocably embedded on the battlefield. The Campaign mode is only available to the Xbox One, PS4 and PC editions of the game. The player will have access to all missions from the start, and will be able to play them in any order desired. .

Several countries around the world have Directed Energy Air Defense (D.E.A.D.) systems that serve to nullify enemy aerial assaults. As a result, ground combat is once again the focus of military strategy. Elite Black Ops soldiers have been embedded with a direct neural interface (DNI) that let them communicate with robotics and net-connected weaponry, in addition to other cybernetic bio-augmentations such as super-powered prosthetic limbs.

The game emphasizes multiple protagonists in each of its levels; up to four distinct characters experience the events of the story all at once, allowing for up to four player cooperative play. Levels feature larger environments and "off the rails" sections in which players engage in large scale open area battles created to increase the possibilities available to the player on the battlefield, with the intent of new open sections aiming to increase the ability of replays of the Campaign. The Campaign also features a new animation system and enemy A.I which has been updated to better react to the diverging approaches players can strategically use. .

Cyber Cores and Cyber Rigs are the new technologies that are available to the players. Cyber Cores consist of skills like hacking and controlling enemy robotics, while Cyber Rigs provide players new movement and defensive capabilities. Players also have access to T-Mode, which enables co-op players to visualize the battlefield with threat assessment overlays and highlights so that they can help each other. . Players will be able to choose their character's gender. Furthermore, the playable character's lower body and shadow are now fully visible during gameplay, whereas in previous games it was only the case during some scripted scenes. They can also have their helmets and outfits customized in many varieties.

Also featured is a "Safe House" where co-op players congregate between campaign missions and can review many items such as weapon loadouts and collectibles. Players can also access an in-game wiki to learn more about the backstory of the game and the state of the world that they are playing in.

Similar to Multiplayer, the players can earn XP (Experience Points) by completing levels and accolades (Challenges) that can't be spent, but let the player rank up to unlock more items such as weapon blueprints along with fabrication kits which act as currency. Ranks can unlock weapon blueprints to acquire weapons, optics and attachments, lethal and tactical grenades, wildcards and Cyber Cores and Cyber Rigs. As mentioned earlier, accolades are the new challenges returning from Call of Duty: Black Ops II, but come in more varieties for every level and offer amounts of XP as the reward upon completion. Also mentioned, fabrication kits can be earned by completing levels and can be spent on items to acquire them after they have been unlocked by reaching the item's required rank.

Campaign also introduces a new difficulty, Realistic, which is harder than Veteran. In Realistic mode, the player will have only one hitpoint, thus will die in one hit from any weapon.

Plot
The game begins with the Player (Black Ops 3) and their partner, Jacob Hendricks, infiltrating an Ethiopian airport to rescue Egyptian Prime Minister Said from the NRC with the assistance of John Taylor and his team of cybernetically enhanced soldiers. During the rescue, the team becomes compromised after deciding to rescue Lt. Khalil, and Taylor's team decide to resue the other hostages. While the rescue is successful, the Player is critically wounded by a Grunt with both hands ripped from the wrists and the right leg broken. Believing that it's the Player's best chance for survival, Taylor brings him/her to a research installation that specializes in the advanced cybernetic enhancements that Taylor and his team use and decides to use the same cybernetics in order to save the Player's life. The Player is also given their own DNI during surgery. Although he wasn't injured, Hendricks volunteers to undergo cybernetic enhancement surgery as well and both operatives are recruited into Taylor's unit.

After surgery, the Player is introduced to Taylor and his unit, which consists of Sebastian Diaz, Sarah Hall, and Peter Maretti during a series of simulations of past battles that were connected with a terrorist attack on a Coalescence train. Five years later, the Player, Hendricks, and CIA agent Rachel Kane investigate the CIA Black Station in Singapore that lost communications. They discover the CIA Black Station staff brutally murdered in the ritual "Death of Reincarnation" and the data drives gone. The team then lead an assault on the 54 Immortals to recover the data drives by posing as arms dealers and then investigate an abandoned Coalescence Corporation facility in Singapore where 300,000 people were killed a long time ago. Within the facility, the group is attacked by several corrupted Grunts but were actually anonymously commanded. They discover that the CIA were performing illegal DNI experiments on unwilling test subjects, where the group soon find the corpses. They shortly later learn that Diaz has hooked himself up to the facility's central CPU core, controlling the Grunts and uploading CIA safe house location information. They manage to kill Diaz, but the secrets were unfortunately sent, revealing every worldwide CIA location.

The team soon becomes compromised by 54i forces but successfully escape and then attempt to rescue Kane from 54i forces who massively attacked Singapore. After reaching the safe house which was caught on fire, the Player goes and rescues Kane and then suddenly gets attacked by Goh Xiulan, but kills her and safely escapes. The team then heads to Egypt to interrogate Yousef Salim, one of the two survivors of the explosion. Dr. Salim reveals that he had worked on a secret project involving illegal DNI experiments on humans, and that his job was to comfort the emotionally unstable test subjects. Taylor and his team then capture Dr. Salim, interrogate him, and then execute him right before Hall ambushes the Egyptian army, but gets defeated and interrogated, revealing an AI virus called Corvus and him corrupting everybody's DNI, slowly taking over it which makes the Player curious about the "Frozen Forest". With help from Khalil and the Egyptian army, the Player, Hendricks, and Kane are able to confront Maretti in an aquifer who is killed. The team then assaults the Lotus Towers, killing the NRC leader Hakim and ting Taylor. Atop the Lotus Towers, the Player battles Taylor by defeating the enemy Mothership. Taylor briefly regains his senses and tears his own DNI out of his head before being killed by Hendricks who has been infected by Corvus, who goes to the Coalescence facility in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Player and Kane head to Zurich to stop Hendricks, but are hampered when Hendricks hijacks the entire city's computer systems and robotic defenders. The Player and Kane manage to breach the Coalescence HQ, discovering that Coalescence has found and replicated the nerve gas Nova 6, having laced the virus into the explosives that killed the 300,000 people in Singapore. Kane attempts to bypass security by initiating emergency protocols, but is tricked and killed by Corvus when it traps her in a room full of Nova 6. The Player continues on and kills Hendricks right after Hendricks kills the other survivor of the explosion, Sebastian Krueger. In order to stop Corvus' infection, the Player commits suicide, and ends up inside a simulated world created within their own DNI. There, the Player is reunited with digital reincarnations of his/her teammates, who have given into Corvus's influence except for Taylor, who agrees to help the Player fight Corvus. Taylor explains that the only way for the Player to defeat Corvus for good is to initiate a system purge in their DNI. After fighting their way through Corvus' illusory forces, the Player manages to regain control of their body and purges their DNI. As the Player stumbles out of the building where the robots were overrun by the ZSF, a soldier asks the Player to identify thereself. As their system slowly completes the purge, he Player says "Taylor" before the screen instantly fades to black, leaving the Player's non-reality fate unknown and opening up the possibility of a sequel.

The briefing of each mission, written in the form of Taylor's journal, reveals that the Player was actually dead shortly after their surgery, indicating that every event that happens afterwards (The 54 Immortal's Uprising, the Attack on Cairo, Hendricks' and Kane's Deaths, etc.) is a figment of the Player's dying dream, based on Taylor's real experience as he and his squad mates went on a hunt for a rogue agent named Dylan Stone. As a result, the final mission is not based on any "real" mission that John Taylor went on; rather, it is a figment of imagination created by the player's mind to achieve closure. This is also why it is the most disconnected to the rest of the narrative of the story.

Pre-Mission Text Reports
Prior to the beginning of each mission, a stream of text scrolls across the screen too fast to be read normally without pausing the video. These texts are a series of mission reports by John Taylor. The first text describes the events of the mission in Ethiopia, in which Hendricks' team were left behind during the extraction of Minister Said and Lt. Khalil and overrun by combat robots, with the sole survivor taken to Zurich for emergency lifesaving surgery as well as recruited into the Cyber Soldier program, with Taylor personally interfacing with the sole survivor through their DNIs to assist in their recuperation. However, the mission report differs from the events of the game in that it reports the sole survivor of the mission in Ethiopia (The Player) actually died due to surgical complications during the surgery to install their cybernetic augmentations.

The remaining mission reports by John Taylor take place a significant period of time prior to the mission in Ethiopia, describing John Taylor's induction into the C.I.A.'s Black Ops program and his time serving alongside operatives Dylan Stone, Javier Ramirez, Alice Conrad, and Joseph Fierro, with Jacob Hendricks acting as their commanding officer. Several months prior to the Ethiopia mission, Stone, Ramirez, Conrad, and Fierro were sent to investigate a silent alarm triggered by an abandoned C.I.A. laboratory deep underneath the destroyed Coalescence Corporation building in Singapore. There, Stone and his team discovered evidence the C.I.A. had been engaged in illegal human DNI testing on kidnapped criminals, as well as stockpiling chemical weapons, whose accidental release was responsible for the Singapore disaster and the resulting 300,000 deaths. Stone and his team threatened to go public with this information, at which point they were targeted for termination by the C.I.A. In retaliation, Stone's team decided to defect to the CDP, trading classified Winslow Accord data to assist their escape.

Taylor and Hendricks were assigned to hunt down their former squadmates, assisted by C.I.A. LNO Rachel Kane. Javier Ramirez was killed inside the C.I.A. lab while attempting to upload additional classified information to the public internet. Taylor, Hendricks, and Kane then tracked the remaining team members to Egypt, where the NRC had used the information leaked by Stone to gain a tactical advantage and seize control of the capital of Cairo. With the assistance of Egyptian military officer Lt. Zeyad Khalil, Taylor's group successfully fought through NRC forces and tracked down and eliminated Alice Conrad and Joseph Fierro. During the course of the mission, Hendricks voiced increasing moral objections to their assignment, feeling morally conflicted with having to assassinate his former teammates. Meanwhile, Taylor and Kane developed a romantic relationship.

Working with Lt. Khalil, Taylor's group ultimately triggered a civilian uprising against the NRC in Cairo, killing the NRC's military leader General Hakim and pursuing Dylan Stone through the NRC's regional headquarters of Lotus Towers. During the course of the fighting, Khalil's position was overrun and he was captured by the NRC. Taylor confronted Stone in a final battle on the roof of the Towers, but received serious injuries as a result. Hendricks arrived to save Taylor at the last moment. In the aftermath, Taylor was recruited into the experimental Cyber Soldier program, ultimately being assigned to lead a new team consisting of Sebastian Diaz, Sarah Hall, and Peter Maretti. Meanwhile, Hendricks resigned from the Black Ops assassination team due to his moral objections to the work, and transferred to a different Black Ops team involved in less controversial activities such as hostage rescue. Kane broke up with Taylor due to her disagreement with his decision to join the Cyber Soldier program, leaving behind her bandana, which Taylor can be seen wearing as a keepsake during the mission in Ethiopia.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer has evolved substantially since Call of Duty: Black Ops II while still meant to evoke the same spirit. Building slightly off Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, players can now wall-run, power slide, and boost jump their ways across maps that have been built from the ground-up with these new traversal options in mind. Swimming, as well as underwater shooting, has also been added as a new way to approach the battle. The boost jumps function similarly to the exo-jumps from Advanced Warfare. Where the exo-jumps deliver sharper angles and straight lines, the boosted jumps deliver curves and drifts in Black Ops III.

The Pick 10 system from Black Ops II has returned, and the 10 points will be used for picking Guns, Lethals, Tacticals, Attachments, Perks, and Wildcards. Players will have a lot of freedom in customization, even being allowed to put up to six attachments on one weapon in the Gunsmith section of multiplayer. The Pick 10 system does not cover Scorestreaks, as those are chosen separately.

In addition to the traditional Pick 10 class customization, the player now plays as one of nine specific characters, called Specialists, instead of as a generic soldier. The nine playable specialists, four revealed in April, two revealed at E3 2015, two revealed in preparation for the Playstation 4 Beta, and the last revealed less than a month before launch are:


 * Ruin: an infantry soldier from a tough neighborhood who volunteered for cybernetic limb replacements, despite not having an injury necessitating it.
 * Seraph: an enforcer for the 54I crime syndicate who is known for her discipline in combat.
 * Outrider: a product of the Brazilian favelas, where she earned a place in the ranks of the Brazilian Special Forces.
 * Reaper: a combat robot prototype from a canceled government R&D project built by the Coalescence Corporation..
 * Prophet: a member of the British Engineering Corps.
 * Nomad: the last surviving member of an elite rapid deployment force that specialized in jungle warfare.
 * Battery: an armored explosives specialist, she crushed the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program.
 * Spectre: a presumed wet-works specialist about whom next to nothing is known.
 * Firebreak

Each specialist gives players the option of either taking a power weapon or a special ability into battle. The power weapons and abilities have the potential to be game-changers. Rather than being able to access the player's weapon or ability at will, a continually charging meter dictates when they can use it. The meter charges more quickly based on player performance, but typically takes between two and four minutes to fully charge for weapons, while only taking around two minutes to fill up for abilities. Each Specialist also has their own personality, and will shout quotes and orders in the field freely. The player is also able to pick gestures and taunts for their specialists.

The Gunsmith is another element of Black Ops III multiplayer meant to give players even more choices when customizing their weapon, allowing them to choose how attachments look and apply custom paintjobs and camouflages to their weapons.

Dedicated servers are in the PC version of the game, along with a FOV slider.

It was confirmed at PlayStation's 2015 E3 Conference that future DLC would be available first on PlayStation consoles as opposed to Xbox consoles. This marks the end of a multi-year deal where Xbox consoles received access to Call of Duty ' s DLC first.

A tweet from David Vonderhaar also confirmed that character customization will be also available in multiplayer.

Multiplayer Maps
Maps are being built primarily with an emphasis on three lanes and two stories of verticality, similar to maps in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Only a couple will actually feature water.

DLCs will include re-imagined maps from World at War and the Black Ops series

Treyarch also announced that they would release a map editor tool for the PC version of the game after March 2016, allowing players to create their own maps and game modes, as well as servers with modded content.

Title Update/Patch Notes
(Newest Update Info)

v. 33.18.20 XB1/PS4 November 13th

The update includes weapon nerfs and buffs, medals and challenges fixes, Arena CTF changes, and more. Vonderhaar stated that most of the weapon edits were very small; some changes edited the clip sizes to damage ranges; ADSs times and more.

-Nerfed Weapons
 * Gorgon
 * XR-2
 * Pharo
 * VMP
 * Haymaker

-Buffed Weapons
 * Razorback
 * HVK-30
 * Dingo
 * KRM-262
 * Argus
 * Locus

v. 33.16.18 XB1/PS4/PC November 12th
 * Adds Capture the Flag to Arena mode
 * Adds Hardcore Domination and Hardcore Kill Confirmed
 * Uplink Time Glitch has been fixed
 * Spawn Fixes

v. 33.13.16 XB1/PS4/PC November 11th
 * Fixes for more challenges
 * Fixes map exploits
 * Weapon Prestige Bugs have been fixed
 * Fixed an issue where there could be more than 4 players in Zombies lobby
 * Fix for EMP having an effect on friendly Cerberus

v. 33.12.15 XB1/PS4/PC November 10th
 * Spawn changes in FFA and Gun Game
 * Arena mode:
 * Banned items that should be restricted will still be restricted, but attachments are not working. Needs a patch for that.
 * Ante-Up issue has been fixed


 * Issues with some challenges have been fixed


 * Bad ADS views with kill counter and/or clan tags put on weapon have been fixed
 * Increased the amount of score you get in Search & Destroy. Match bonus was only being displayed, but you were actually getting full amount. Full number should be showed now.
 * XP earned per kill in Search and Destroy has increased from 250 to 500.
 * Zombies: fixed issue where solo games were joinable

Zombies
Zombies mode returns in Call of Duty: Black Ops III. It is being touted as its "own experience" and will have its own XP-based progression system. This system effects gameplay by letting you customize your weapons. This is done by changing the skin and scope on the weapon, as well as adding attachments, custom logos, and symbols.

Zombies was briefly teased at the end of the Call of Duty: Black Ops III reveal trailer, where a Zombie could be seen ripping a plank out of a window, with a horde of other Zombies following up behind it; the zombies had yellow eyes. The Zombie mode reveal trailer was first shown on July 9th at the zombies panel at San Diego Comic-Con. There, a short video about the history of zombies was shown before the trailer for the new map, titled "Shadows of Evil". People who attended the panel also got an early look at the trailer for the bonus map that comes with each of the special editions of the game, a remake of Der Riese titled "The Giant", which is the translation of Der Riese from German.

A leaked achievements list confirmed that Dead Ops Arcade from Call of Duty: Black Ops is due to return in Black Ops III as "Dead Ops Arcade 2".

Last Generation Version
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops III was developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology, while the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC (Microsoft Windows) version of the game was developed by Treyarch. Due to the fact that the seventh/last generation consoles have less powerful hardware, there are a few changes to the last generation version. These changes are:
 * The campaign is not available.
 * Nightmares mode is not available.
 * The multiplayer beta was not available.
 * Custom paintjobs aren't available.
 * Gunsmith isn't available.
 * Ground War isn't available.
 * Maximum frame rate is limited to 30 FPS in Zombies and between 30 and 60 FPS in multiplayer, unlike previous Call of Duty games.
 * NUK3TOWN isn't available.
 * The Giant and the Season Pass are not available.
 * Theater Mode is not available.
 * Gibbing isn't available.

Controversy
See also - Call of Duty: Black Ops III Controversy

Hardened Edition
The Hardened Edition is available for Xbox One and PS4 for $79.99. It includes:
 * A code for accessing the multiplayer beta for the game (No longer Included)
 * The limited edition specialist concept art cards
 * The Giant Zombies bonus map
 * Two personalization packs: Weaponized 115 and Cyborg
 * The collectible steelbook
 * The official Call of Duty: Black Ops III soundtrack

Digital Deluxe Edition
The Digital Deluxe Edition is available for Xbox One, PS4 and PC for $99.99. It includes:
 * A code for accessing the multiplayer beta for the game (No longer Included)
 * The limited edition specialist concept art cards
 * The Giant Zombies bonus map
 * Three personalization packs: fan favorite Cyborg & Weaponized 115 packs along with a new Black Ops III pack
 * The full base game, Season Pass & additional digital content

Juggernog Edition
The Juggernog Edition is available for Xbox One and PS4 for $199.99. It includes:
 * A code for accessing the multiplayer beta for the game (No longer Included)
 * The limited edition specialist concept art cards
 * The Giant Zombies bonus map
 * Three personalization packs: fan favorite Cyborg & Weaponized 115 packs along with a new Black Ops III pack
 * The full base game & Season Pass
 * The Juggernog mini-fridge
 * The Perk-a-Cola coaster set with a custom tin
 * The collectible steelbook
 * The official Call of Duty: Black Ops III soundtrack

Trivia

 * On the PlayStation 4 version, when playing by one's self, the light bar on the player's controller will be orange.