Grief is a Zombies game mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and a scrapped mode from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Matches consist of two teams trying to outlast each other during round-based gameplay. During matches, they can assist or impede each others survival, with games ending when only one team is left standing.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II[]
- "Fight the undead WITH or AGAINST the other team. But in the end, only one team survives..."
- — Description
Grief plays like a larger scale version of Survival, with two teams of four players each competing to outlive each other. Grief features two factions on every map; Town, Farm and Borough feature the CIA and the CDC, while Cell Block features the Alcatraz Guards and Alcatraz Prisoners.
Teams cannot directly harm one another, but they can still hinder each other by blocking the enemy team's way via not opening doors, blocking passageways, luring zombies towards them, knifing them or shooting them. Collected power-ups only reward the team that picks them up. Damaging an enemy player slightly delays revive time, slightly stuns them, and slows down their movement. Knifing them does all the same things, but pushes them as well. The game ends when an entire team is downed, and least one player from the other team is alive and survives the rest of the round. If both teams are completely downed, every player will be revived and the round will restart.
Players can also choose to work cooperatively, but do not have the option to turn off friendly fire or share power-ups. Some power-ups, such as the Nuke or Carpenter, can be mutually beneficial but will not reward points to the opposing team. Opposing players also can't revive each other. Regardless of how the match is approached, one team will eventually lose.
A unique power-up, Zombie Flesh, can drop in Grief and, when thrown at another player, will attract the horde of zombies to them. Edward Richtofen or Brutus can be heard in the beginning of each match, talking to both teams, and when a player dies or leaves the match, they will announce their departure/demise. Upon having a person go down, a faction icon will appear over them, to show the players whose team member is down. In addition, after beginning, the player will see either a CIA, CDC, Prisoner, or Guard logo near the round counter, denoting their affiliation.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4[]
Grief was planned to return in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, with several internal remnants remaining. 10 additional player spawn locations were found in Blood of the Dead, at the same location of the Mob of the Dead Grief spawns.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6[]
- "4v4 competitive mode where two teams outwit and outlast each other. Capture zones to debuff enemies. No damage against other players. Respawns every third round."
- — In-game description
Grief returns in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and was added as part of the Season Four update. It is a permanent game mode, the third after "Standard" and Directed Mode.
Like in Black Ops II, Grief pits two teams of four players against each other, both working to outlive the other. Players can play as any Operator they would like, and are assigned to fight for either Richtofen or S.A.M. at the start of the match, who will then provide communications and instructions for them for the remainder of the match. The match ends when all players on a single team are down or dead at the same time.
Grief can be played on all maps in Black Ops 6, but like in Black Ops II these are small, limited, and modified sections of existing maps rather than the fully featured originals, and are referred to as "Arenas". During matchmaking, players are given two maps to play and whichever has the most votes is selected. A random arena is then selected for the map itself. The available arenas are:
- Liberty Falls Arena 1: Pump & Pay, Motor Lodge, and Fuller’s Liberty Lanes
- Liberty Falls Arena 2: Dark Aether Church, Cemetery, Hilltop
- Terminus Arena 1: Bio Lab
- Terminus Arena 2: Crab Island
- Citadelle des Morts Arena: Courtyard, Ramparts, and Entrance Hall
- The Tomb Arena 1: Dig Site, Mausoleum
- The Tomb Arena 2: Dark Aether Nexus
- Shattered Veil Arena 1: Garden Pond, Lower Terrace
- Shattered Veil Arena 2: Upper Terrace, Shem’s Henge, Motor Court
- Shattered Veil Arena 3: Mansion Foyer, Overlook, East Foyer, Library
- Shattered Veil Arena 4: West Hallways, Southwest Balcony, Bottlery
Grief Arenas start with all critical doors already opened and the power already turned on. All other Door Buys are inactive. Both teams spawn on opposite sides of the Arena, each in a group of four. The Arsenal, Pack-a-Punch Machine, Mystery Box, Crafting Table, Perk-a-Cola Machines, GobbleGum machine, Armor Wall Buys, and Der Wunderfizz machine are available in a Grief Arena where they normally reside, or in a new location if they don’t normally exist in the Arena portion of their respective maps.
Grief is only available through Matchmaking with the squad fill toggle always on. As a result, all games of Grief are 8-player 4v4's.
Gameplay[]
Like in Black Ops II, the primary objective is to outlive the enemy team. Players can do this by killing zombies, indirectly hampering the other teams progress through body blocking and slowing down their movement and limiting their accuracy with melee and bullet attacks, capturing zones to trigger Griefs, or denying them Power-Ups and Salvage. Unlike in Standard playlists, Salvage pickups in Grief are visible to all players and can only be picked up by the first player to grab it.
New in Black Ops 6 are Capture Zones, which appear at regular intervals during a match, these are smaller areas within a Grief Arena where players are required to stand and earn specific types of kills to trigger a Grief on the opposing team. The first team that meets the Capture Zones requirement will trigger a Grief on the other team, but if neither team reaches this requirement within the countdown inside a Capture Zone, the Grief is applied to both teams.
Capture Zones also introduce new score types, not available in standard modes, including:
- Capture Zone Kill: Awarded to a player who defeated a zombie type during a successful Capture Zone completion.
- Capture Zone Win: Awarded to all players on a team who successfully commandeer a Capture Zone.
- Capture Zone Elite Kill: Awarded to a player who slays an Elite spawned in a Capture Zone.
Rounds progress faster than usual and the amount of zombies per round has been increased to account for 8 players. All undead enemies in Black Ops 6 can appear as combatants, except for Bosses, on all maps. If players fail to kill all zombies after a set amount of time, the rounds will still progress.
Any team members that are downed, provided one or more of their team are still alive, can be revived at any time, though rival teams and undead enemies can impede this. Additionally, a Wave Respawner triggers every third round, automatically reviving any eliminated teammates from both teams. Join in Progress is available for Grief, and any player not in the game can join up until Round 10 has been completed and has a small grace period to orient themselves. However, if a team has won back-to-back Capture Zones, join-in-progress is disabled.
Treyarch have stated they intend Grief games to last about 20 to 30 minutes, though games can go well beyond that depending on the skill level of the teams involved.
Griefs[]
Griefs are temporary debuffs, penalties, or negative gameplay mechanics that can be inflicted on the rival team by capturing a Capture Zone. Capture Zones show players what type of Grief they will cause if won, including:
| Griefs | Effect |
|---|---|
 Weapon Nerf |
The affected players inflict considerably reduced damage to zombie enemies. |
 Ammo Drain |
All ammo-based weapons, including those stowed, receive an ammo drain with bullets or shells being removed constantly while the Grief is active. |
 Zombie Ambush |
An Elite zombie is summoned, and it solely focuses its killing power on the enemy team until either the Elite or the team are defeated, or the timer runs out. |
 Weapon Carousel |
The rival players' weapons are randomly swapped every few seconds. |
 Frozen |
This Grief reduces the enemy players’ movement, along with frost and ice coating the characters. |
Restrictions and Balancing[]
Certain elements of the standard Zombies experience are disabled or modified either due to the new mechanics of Grief or for balancing reasons, these include:
- All primary Wonder Weapons are unavailable.
- The Monkey Bomb and LT53 Kazimir are still obtainable.
- The Exit Strategy, Idle Eyes, Wonderbar!, Time Out, and Flavor Hex GobbleGums
- Aether Shroud and Healing Aura Field Upgrades now take longer to charge.
- 240 kills for Healing Aura.
- 180 kills for Aether Shroud.
- GobbleGum machines have a 5 Minute cool down before another Gum can be pulled
- All enemies, including standard Zombies, deal higher damage to the players
- At round 1 enemies do 1.5x their normal damage. This continues to escalate until Round 20 which caps out at 4x their normal damage[1]
- Chopper Gunner and Mutant Injection cannot drop from Special or Elite Zombie kills
- Only one Self-Revive can be crafted by each player per match
- All Main Quests are disabled due to the limited play spaces provided by Arenas
Gallery[]
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
Call of Duty: Black Ops II[]
- When players from the opposite teams knife or shoot each other, butterflies explode out of where the knife or shot should be. In Cell Block, purple electricity explodes out instead. In both cases, the player that is shot or knifed will be stunned for a second.
- On the Survival mode and Grief mode on Green Run, zombie women use different models. In Survival, they wear a torn up t-shirt and a skirt while in Grief they wear a jean-type skirt with a dress.
- From a radio message, the reason that the CIA and CDC are fighting is because one side is hearing Maxis's voice while the other is hearing Richtofen's voice, though only Richtofen's voice can be heard in-game.
- Grief's Cell Block map is the only instance of the PhD Flopper machine spawning in a playable space in Black Ops II.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6[]
- Treyarch had been searching for ways to bring back Grief for some time before re-introducing it in Black Ops 6. The eventual catalyst for doing so was the unique story opportunity they were presented with from the conflict between Richtofen and S.A.M.[2]
- When a new Grief Zone appears, the alarm sound from "Five" is played.
- When a new round starts, one of the new round themes from Dead of the Night can be heard.
- Although all Special and Elite Enemies can appear on all maps in Grief, the enemy pool is particularly weighted towards a maps original combatants and other spawns are exceedingly rare.
- All Arenas are laid out the same way as the areas would be in a standard game, with their accompanying utilities all available. The only changes these areas see are the addition of whatever utilities they may have been missing.
- Treyarch has described their approach to updating and balancing Grief as being similar to how they balance Ranked Play, wanting to watch player trends and playstyles and quickly update things relating to them.
References[]
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