Activision has announced a brand new DLC pack for Call of Duty and it is neither for last year’s Infinite Warfare or the upcoming Call of Duty: WWII. The newly announced ‘Zombies Chronicles’ resurrects not only hordes of the undead but also the multiplayer community for 2015’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
Featuring remastered & reimagined versions of Zombies maps from past COD games like World at War, Black Ops II and the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, Zombies Chronicles provides players with a greatest hits of corpse filled maps.
Owners of Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be able to purchase Zombie Chronicles on PlayStation 4 on May 16th. It will be priced at $29.99 USD and will require either a digital or physical copy of Black Ops III to be accessible, Zombies Chronicles is not a stand alone title. In addition to the 8 included maps owners of Zombies Chronicles will also receive 2 all new Gobbleguns, 20 vials of Liquid Divinium and a PlayStation exclusive Black Ops III Zombies Chronicles dynamic theme.
For more information about the add-on including the official Call of Duty Zombies timeline head on over to the game’s official site.
Activision has revealed the final 32 teams that will face off in 17 days at Call of Duty XP for the finale of the Call of Duty: World League, which began earlier this year. Some of these teams faced off this past weekend in a mini-event to fight for the right to partake in day one of the three day tournament.
What is up for grabs at the Call of Duty: World Leagues? More than $3 million dollars have been up for grabs during the World League and Activision is promising that the prize pool for this final bracket will be the largest in franchise history.
Call of Duty XP will take place on September 2nd through the 4th and will be the public’s first chance to try out November’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare‘s multiplayer component. Also playable at the XP event will be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered‘s multiplayer and the fourth downloadable expansion for COD: Black Ops III. More details about COD XP in Los Angeles is available on their official website.
Fans not able to attend Call of Duty: XP will be able to watch live coverage of the World League finale through MLG.TV and the live feed option in the PS4 version of Black Ops III.
Here is the full rundown of competing teams for the World League finale:
This weekend’s Steam deals include a number of deals on several Activision titles across a number of genres. Everything from several Call of Duty titles, multiple Transformers games and Platinum Game’s recent Legend of Kora title have been heavily discounted until Monday morning. If you’ve wanted to jump in on older Activision games like 2012’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, which seems to be several times better than last year’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 now is the time time to do so for less than $5!
Activision is set to release the second DLC add-on for Call of Duty: Black Ops III – Eclipse– in just over two weeks. On April 19th PS4 players will be able to dive-in to four brand new multiplayer maps: Spire, Rift, Knockout and Verge. Eclipse also contains a brand new Zombies experience, titled Zetsubou No Shima, set in World War II’s Pacific Theater according to a press release issued by Activision Publishing.
Zetsubou No Shima continues the multi-character story that kicked off in the on-disc Zombies mode “Shadows of Evil”. In the latest installment our four main characters – voiced by Jeff Goldblum, Heather Graham, Neil McDonough and Ron Perlman – find themselves investigating experiments involving a mysterious compound called Element 115 at the Division 9 facilities in the Pacific islands.
Microsoft has launched a Spring Sale to mark the change in seasons and it includes 40 – 60% off over 150 different games from major publishers like Namco Bandai, EA Games, Konami, Ubisoft and Bethesda Softworks. Gold members also get an additional 10% off the sale price. Microsoft is also bringing back their $1 for one month of Xbox Live gold for those whose subscriptions may have lapsed.
Here are some of the best Xbox One Deals:
Battlefield 4 Premium 67% off – $19.99 CDN for Gold Members
Battlefield Hardline Standard Edition – $16.00 CDN for Gold Members
Call of Duty: Black Ops III – $40.00 CDN for Gold Members
Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition – $30.00 CDN for Gold Members
Dragon Age Inquisition: GOTY – $30.00 CDN for Gold Members
Dragon Ball Xenoverse – $20.00 CDN for Gold Members
Elite Dangerous Standard – $25.12 CDN for God Members
Fallout 4 – $38.99 CDN for Gold Members
Far Cry Primal – $49.99 CDN for Gold Members
Halo 5: Guardians – $38.99 CDN for Gold Members
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain – $35.99 CDN for Gold Members
Need for Speed (2015) – $19.80 CDN for Gold Members
Rare Replay – $19.99 CDN for Gold Members
Rise of the Tomb Raider – $38.99 CDN for Gold Members
Rainbow Six: Siege Standard – $35.99 CDN for Gold Members
Unravel – $16.99 CDN for Gold Members
All of these deals also apply to USA based Xbox Gold Members, although prices would be adjusted due to currency differences. You can see the full list on Major Nelson’s website.
It appears that the moderation team that oversee the popular Call of Duty: Blacks Ops III sub reddit r/BlackOps3 have taken a hiatus from moderation duties after backlash from the community that calumniated in one particular mod receiving death threats.
The whole situation can be quite confusing, specifically because the front-page of the sub reddit appears to be filled with spam threads, threads complaining about the lack of moderation and just general immaturity.
But from what I can gather from reading this stickied thread and several threads about “the purge” (a name given to the lack of moderation by the community, referencing the 2013 film of the same name) all of this began after the r/BlackOps3 moderation team suggested a merge with another popular Call of Duty sub reddit, r/CallofDuty.
r/BlackOps3 sub reddit mod Gurr3nX received death threats and summed up his unfortunate and probably very scary situation thusly:
“I just had like the shittiest work week ever, 7 days and 67 hours. I also put up with some of the most toxic, vile, piece of shit people as best as I could. So “Your time is up, my time is now” everyone.
I didnt ask for the purge, but god damn I cant say I dont enjoy it after the shit some of you guys pull.”
Some posters on r/BlackOps3 have side-stepped the absolutely toxic behavior of their peers and instead expressed their opinion on the proposed merger and its’ potential impact on the existing community:
“I wanna clarify, I’m pretty neutral on this whole merge thing, I just think the mods should listen to what their community wants. I reckon if they had made the proposal of just trying it, and if the community thinks it doesn’t work, they revert it (correct me if a mod did say this), this shitstorm would have been avoided in the first place.”
As someone who has managed several communities – both large and small – I can say with certainty that community organization / moderation is often a thankless job. Deepest sympathies to Gurr3nX and here’s hoping that the immature antics of the r/BlackOps3 community don’t cause him any personal distress or harm. I know it shouldn’t be surprising that a game as well renowned as Call of Duty for screaming 14 year old would foster a community that issues death threats to their peers but online harassment is very real and unacceptable.
I’ll be keeping tabs on the r/BlackOps3 situation and will update this story with any major developments.
Today marks the start of the first season for the Call of Duty: World League, Activision’s brand new international e-sports ladder for the Call of Duty franchise. For the next 11 weeks teams from all over the world will battle it out in a series of “Best of Five Matches” in Call of Duty: Black Ops III. The current slate of matches will culminate in regional LAN events to determine who will enter the first stage of the CWL this March.
Live streams will be available today and tomorrow for three different regions: North America, Europe and Australia / New Zealand. Each region also have their own team of commentators who will be calling each match for viewers.
You can watch all of the matches today and tomorrow on Activision’s official website. Here’s the full line-up for the next two days including times and casters:
Our first games sales numbers to include the post holiday discount period have arrived thanks to the weekly UK software charts. Not surprising several AAA franchise compose the top ten including EA’s Star Wars Battlefront, Activision’s Call of Duty and Bethesda softwork’s Fallout 4.
What is a little surprising is to see Just Cause 3 crack into the top ten – currently occupying the 8th place. Considering that game was released so late in the pre-holiday season (early December) it is encouraging to see it ahead of Forza Motorsport 6 and just behind the latest Assassin’s Creed.
Here are top ten titles from the UK for the week ending Jan 2nd:
If you’re in the mood for some fast paced futuristic Call of Duty multiplayer but don’t feel like shelling out $60 for the privilege of ranking up your custom soldier, thanks to Treyarch and Valve, you don’t have too. From now until 1PM PST on Sunday the Multiplayer component of Call of Duty: Black Ops III is free for all Steam users.
This free weekend was originally confirmed via Treyarch’s official twitter account before appearing on the Steam Store front page:
Free #BlackOps3 Multiplayer (PC) weekend is now live on Steam (ends Sunday at 1pm/PST). Jump in now and enjoy! https://t.co/u2SnabAe41
In terms of installation size you’re looking at a 29GB install to try out Black Ops III – so if you’re on capped internet this might be a bit of a behemoth to download just for 48 hours of free access. Wondering whether or not your rig is powerful enough to run the game? Here are the official recommended specs:
MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit / Windows 8 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 64-Bit
The Broken Cast is back once again with Episode 7 –The FPS Rundown. This week on the show we talk about three major First Person Shooters that have all hit the market or had closed betas in the last few weeks.
First up we venture through the wastes with Fallout 4, quite a few people on our staff have been playing the game since it was released a month ago and we recount our early hours exploring the burnt out city of Boston. If you haven’t heard of it by now, Fallout 4 is one hell of a game.
Next up we talk about the recent Overwatch Weekend Stress Test. Our EIC absolutely loved her time with the game enough that she went out and pre-purchased the game. Expect lots of gushing about the beta version of the game and hopes of the future.
Last up we talk about Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Our reviewer, Erika, gives us her impressions of the game.
You can find our podcast on Itunes or on Soundcloud.
Bethesda’s Fallout 4 is the 2nd most played game on Steam a week after its release with 256,000+ players. This comes after the game broke existing records when it launched last week with 360,000 players – the game went live at midnight on November 11th. Previously RockStar Game’s Grand Theft Auto V held the record for concurrent players with 301,000+ when it was released on PC this past April.
Fallout 4’s numbers are nowhere near the reigning champion, Valve’s DOTA 2, which had 318,000 concurrent players as of press time and a peak today of nearly a million players today! Comparing Fallout 4’s numbers to DOTA 2’s isn’t exactly fair since one game is a single player immersive RPG and the other is a 5 Vs. 5 MOBA.
Rounding out the top ten include PC staples like Valve’s own Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2. Surprisingly Activision’s latest entry in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops III is the last place on the top ten. I would have thought Black Ops III would have been a bit higher but I guess you can’t deny the power of the wastelands.
Earlier today GMG sent out a blast email to all of those who recently pre-ordered EA’s upcoming shooter Star Wars Battlefront stating that GMG may not be able to fulfil all orders in time for the game’s release tomorrow. This has lead some to wonder if GMG is receiving their keys not from EA directly but from 3rd party retailers.Read More
Please note that this review covers the PS4 version, and some features are not available for the PS3/Xbox 360 versions
Treyarch does an amazing job once more with another installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops 3. The series has come a long way from the World War II era setting of World at War, to Cold War settings of Black Ops 1, and the more recent near future settings of Black Ops 2 and now 3. Just like Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch tries to keep the Call of Duty fresh and engaging for it’s fans, and I feel that it has succeeded with those objectives.
Upon starting up the game and getting the necessary content downloaded to be able to play single player, I brought up the menu and happened upon the Identity section and was immediately taken aback when I explored further into it. I was taken aback due to the fact of the sheer level of customization that can be done with individual weapon setups. A new feature in the franchise is the ability to customize optics, attachments, camos, and paint jobs. In addition to that, the player can save multiple variants of individual weapon setups and use them across Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies, provided that the weapons and attachments are unlocked though each mode. One thing to note is that similar to the emblems, paint jobs add an individual flair if one wants to take the time to make use of a whopping 64 layers for the left and right sides, and the top of the gun. All of that can be done within Gunsmith or Paintshop sub-menus. Also making returns are unlockable calling cards and customizable emblems, franchise staples introduced in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops 1, respectively. Expanding upon those two features you are now the abilities to unlock calling cards via Campaign, Zombies, and from Supply Drops found in Multiplayer.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be in the hands of eager fans in just a weeks’ time – November 6th and Activision has released a brand new trailer for the bonus Nuk3town map. This isn’t the first time that Nuketown has appeared – it dates back all the way to 2010’s original Call of Duty: Black Ops.
Here’s what Activision had to say about the Nuketown Map:
Set in 2065, this fan favorite map from Black Ops has returned in a big way. Nuk3town has been re-designed from the ground up to highlight Treyarch’s new momentum-based, chained-movement system, allowing players to battle in this adrenaline-charged multiplayer map. Players will experience a new take on this classic run-and-gun, close-quarters map. Escape a harsh reality and enjoy this virtual neighborhood of the future.
Check out a brand new trailer for the Zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops III that was just unveiled during Paris Games Week. Featuring characters using a combination of swords and guns the trailer has characters seeking to “return to their homes and their families”
A bonus Zombies map is included exclusively with the Call of Duty: Black Ops III season pass. For more information on the new Zombies mode check out the trailer from a few weeks ago – it is quire film noire.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III releases next Tuesday.
Activation offers this decription of the trailer:
“The Giant” Bonus Map picks up the Zombies story where Origins left off. Re-live the chaos of Treyarch’s classic “Der Riese” Zombies map with Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Richthofen. Set in a World War II-era research facility, complete with the weapon-upgrading Pack-a-Punch Machine, Teleporters, and Hellhounds.
