PaulOfTheDead

I only had a quick go on this so far but one of the things I heard was one of the characters (Nikolai?) saying something like "We were allies in all 3 world wars..." Sorry but I can't actually remember who said it and I didn't hear the response... Did anyone else hear this? I think Nikolai was talking to Richtofen. Did I hear it right? What are the implications for this? Were there three world wars in one of the zombies timelines? Were the wars fought between different sides?

Or at least, isn't talked about as much as it should be (unless it is and I just missed it). The fact that all of the characters seem to be living in a perpetual time loop of some sort. It's made pretty clear in Mob Of The Dead that this is what is going on. But it's hinted at in Die Rise, too ... which I think is the most glaringly obvious clue which is not often discussed, despite the ramifications it seems to have on the whole story. I can't remember exactly how it goes, but basically in the intro you see the characters (all or just some? Can't remember) ripped apart by zombies. Then,the game starts and they are alive again. One of the characters speaks a line which is something along the lines of "It feels like we've been here before." So they all get killed and are then back to life again - they're stuck in a time loop just like MOTD's guys are. And that's how it works in ALL the Zombies maps (all video games in fact) - the heroes get ripped to pieces time and time again and then get to come back to life, unharmed, to have another crack at it, when the gamer restarts the game. Tie this together with the fact that, in some dimension at least,it seems like the whole Zombies universe is a child's game (Origins ending) and I think this is interesting food for thought, and probably a big hint about what Treyarch is doing with the overall storyline.

Well I never bought into the BO2 hype, for some reason wasn't really that bothered by it at the time, so wasn't aware of it supposed to be being a campaign or anything, perhaps that's why I absolutely love Tranzit. Ok it's not the best long-term map - once you worked out how everything fitted together with the fog and the teleporters and stuff, it got a bit bland, none of the clever level design of Die Rise, MOTD, Origins etc. But I loved the feeling i got from playing it when it first came out. It really felt like exploring the unknown, particularly because we didn't know the characters,or why we were here, or what had happened to the Original 4, and how they tied in to what was happening in Green Run. It was great fun bouncing around on the bus with a group of friends, trying to work out what was going on. I'd say the fact that the BO2 Zombies storyline never really satisfied those of us who wanted more of the time travelling adventures of Dempsey, Nikolai etc, was just as much a failing of the other BO2 Zombies maps as it was of Tranzit. Tranzit set the beginning of the story up nicely - it was Buried, MOTD or Origins which should have provided the payoff (although they were all excellent maps in their own right). Treyarch can still put everything right with BO3 though. If that nicely concludes our O4 storyline (in a way that blows our minds) then the post-apocalyptic adventures of the New 4 will just seem like an interesting interlude in the epic main storyline. Don't forget there are parts of the New 4 storyline which haven't been properly explained and might still be important to the story in BO3 Zombies - the real meaning of "mend the rift", the connection to MOTD, the flesh eating cult, most interestingly of all the fact that they seem to be living in a time loop - as shown in the intro to Die Rise.

This is really great and I hope you are right. I love Lovecraft too, and the idea of bringing the mythos into the Zombies mythos is pretty cool. One thing though - where do you get your info on the Mi-Go's lack of ability to guess or make irrational decisions, and their connection to Jack the Ripper. I don't remember that from the Lovecraft tales though its been a while since I read a lot of them. Is it a later Mythos author? Only asking because if it is I'd like to check out their stuff! (Haven't read a lot of the non-Lovecraft Mythos stuff, mainly just a bit of Brian Lumley and Ramsey Campbell, oh and Neil Gaiman if his stuff counts). Personally I would love to see Satan returning from MOTD, and if he does it in the form of the Crawling Chaos, even better. Oh and after checking out the Mi-Go on Wikipedia I spotted one other clue that you might be thinking along the right lines - the Mi-Go's small wings are useless on Earth, because they are designed to carry the species through the "Aether" of outer space, apparently...

Did anyone here play Monkey Island 2 back in the day? Without wanting to spoil one of the greatest adventure games of all time for anyone who hasn't (everyone should!) played it - there is a very similar ending. It's actually even greater and seems more shocking that Origin's ending - but that's maybe because I was just a kid when I saw it, and it's been done before, now. Everyone was outraged at the time.There were two more sequels, and the original designer (Ron Gilbert) wasn't involved with them, so the new writers "ret-conned" the story so that the "It's all a game" ending from two was basically ignored. But now, like 20 years later - everyone acknowledges that the MI2 ending is one of the most memorable and clever pieces of video game storytelling of all time - and not many people like the sequels that came after - they are mostly ignored in "All time top adventure game" lists and the like (The Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island). The fact is, it doesn't matter if it's "All a game" or not - we know it's a made-up story so why are you concerned if it's a story made up by a game designer at Treyarch, or a story made up by a little girl, who is made up by a game designer at Treyarch? This ending opens up so many possibilities, multiverses of different worlds where our games become reality - the next map could be set on a planet on the other side of the universe where we battle flying elephants - literally anything - because it can all fit into a story made up between two bright, imaginative children. Think about the link from Der Reise to Kino -where everyone thought that the Zombies story was at it's peak - what's the actual storyline there? "They overload the teleporter using the Wonderwaffe and that somehow turns it into a time machine". It's not exactly Dickens, is it? The Zombies storyline has always been ridiculous, over-the-top, completely deranged - that's why it's been so much fun! They just cram as much ridiculous stuff as they can into each map - zombies, aliens, nazis, time travel, ancient temples, conspiracy theories, space-age weapons - and then come up with something dumb to link it together with. This ending gives us an explanation for the biggest question of all - WHY IS IT SO DUMB? Most writers (books, films, tv, comics - whatever) would never dare try and provide an explanation for that question. Sorry if this feels like a rant, I am just trying to explain why I feel quite passionately that this is a fantastic ending! I hope I got some of that across.

Where is your evidence for this? All the same characters are there - all the different items from years of Zombies are in Sam's room, their toy chest is a box with a question mark in "Zombiesland" (i.e Sam's head), Zombies are controlled by an all-powerful, disembodied girl's voice called "Samantha" - in the "real" world, Samantha controls the zombies (and her best friend, a boy called Eddie, controls the heroes - who are led by a guy called "Edward"...it's clear that the two are very closely linked - just no one knows how really, yet!

I am still utterly blown away by the way they ended this - and spending too much time thinking about what it might mean for the "next Zombies" when I really should be doing more important stuff...lol

Why not just play solo if you don't want to co-op? Don't think I've ever played a good game of Zombies without mics. If there's a guy in the party without a mic you can bet your ass he's going to steal all your early round kills, not open any doors, raid the box every time he gets 950 pts , then drop out on round 12 because you couldn't get to him to revive him because he's decided to camp on the other side of the map from the rest of you. Don't even ready up these days unless everyone has a mic and is talking.

Pretty sure the ending simply shows an early game in Sam and Eddie's lives. It clearly shows the modern day - in my opinion, the kids simply haven't played "Richtofen's turn" (the BO2 maps, aside from Origins) at the time the cut scene portrays. They get onto that the next day ("tomorrow it's your turn Eddie").

By that logic, then Treyarch can't change what 115 looks like (Shi no Numa meteor in the cinematic intro). Actually they can - Treyarch write the story so they can do whatever they want and change whatever they want, and it simply becomes "canon". We are readers of the story (or players to be more accurate) so anything WE change simply becomes "wrong" if we move away from what Treyarch has told us has happened.

If the bedroom scene was set during WW2 then Treyarch would at least have had it look like it was set there, rather than late 20th century. There is no way kids would have pajamas like that in the 40s, or decorate their rooms in that way, and most obviously have the sort of detailed plastic-moulded action figures you see them playing with. And if Origins is the only map that is part of their game, why would Sam and Eddie have action figures of zombies and characters (the bus etc) that don't appear in Origins?

Ok, I thought of another way to explain it that might annoy some of you a bit less - It's all a story, we all knew that, right? We can start from some common ground there. What difference does it make to us, the players - whether it's a storyline concocted by Treyarch or a storyline concocted by characters that Treyarch made up? Answer - none at all! It's still Treyarch making up the story, just through a proxy - young Sam and Eddie . It doesn't make it any less real! They could (and I pray they do...) now go on and make a whole stand-alone Zombies game, with an epic storyline following on from what happens to the O4 after moon. And what happens to Maxis after origins. Ok we would all know that on one level, it is all going on inside the heads of a pair of kids, but what difference does that actually make? Do you guys all hate The Princess Bride as well, because that's just a story a grandfather is reading to his grandson in bed? It doesn't make sense to think about it like that!

Yeah the bit on upgrading the red staff by shooting candles in the church is slightly wrong - I got the achievement last night and you only need to do 4 torches in the church to upgrade.

Sorry I don't really understand that last sentence. But, I don't think it's me that has a problem grasping reality. The reality is there at the end of Little Girl Lost (or on Youtube if you can't be bothered to do it all) for all to see. I just think some people are acting like babies. Everyone called for a definitive ending for Zombies - they gave us one, now people start saying "Oh I don't want that ending, I want a different one where everything happens the way I want it to happen". It's just childish. And to whoever it was a few posts back that said I was trying to impinge their god-given American right to free speech - I haven't told anyone to shut up or stop saying anything. But if you are going to use your right of free speech to bitch and talk nonsense, then I will use MINE to call you out on it! :)

Trust me, you are unlikely to find a bigger Zombies fan than me - Its pretty much the only video game I've played since I found Nacht in WaW and finished every Easter Egg except Mined Games - I just haven't been able to get a team through the shooting gallery bit - but I will! I just get a bit annoyed when I read people saying things like Treyarch are "insulting" us, or "don't give a fuck" or whatever. It has one of the most crazy and fun storylines of any game I've played and in my opinion this ending doesn't change that one bit. In fact it ends in considerably more satisfactorily than if it had just ended with some team-up against a "big bad" or whatever, and the day being saved, or some standard generic sci-fi rubbish. And I have taken into account the cyphers as well, and to be totally honest they don't change a thing, they just provide a little extra in-world background info (Richofen's parents being dead) - if anything that just make it tie into the "children's game" ending even more (Why is Eddie in his pyjamas at a young girl's house, when they aren't brother and sister? They aren't the same age so probably aren't just having a friendly sleep over - So, Eddie's parents are dead, and Sam's parents have fostered him, most probably. In other words, Eddie based the character of "Richtofen", in their game , on himself.

Well I don't really remember too many sexual perversions in Zombies. But being a massive sexual pervert myself, perhaps my definition is different from most people's The rest of the stuff - Nazi Occultism, the conspiracies, aliens, Vril, USS Nimitz, Area 51 - isn't exactly adult stuff. I learned about most of it when I was a child, interested in mythology and conspiracy theories and that kind of stuff. I would say that Sam and Eddie don't exactly look like very young children either - Eddie in particular looks like a young teenager - 12 or 13 perhaps - a bit old to be playing with action figures (he probably doesn't mind with his younger female friend Sam, but I bet he keeps that part of his life hidden from male friends of the same age as him). Sam is like, 9 or 10 or something - girls mature faster than boys, right? And it's definitely possible that an intelligent, curious girl of that age would have read something about Nazi occultism, Area 51 etc.

Those kind of action figures that the kids are playing with did not exist until well after World War 2 though. And the clothes they are wearing , and the decorations in the bedroom, it is clearly supposed to be set during the modern day or the very near past/future. Remember how children's games work? They are a mix-match of crazy storylines and nonsense, full of loose ends, nothing ever adds up because kids are constantly inventing new things and adding them to the mix - this is what Zombies is about. Sorry, but everyone insisting "Zombies is real! this ending is dumb" is being a bit stupid. Of course none of it is real. Ok, this probably isn't the right place to try and bring up a philosophical debate, but think for a second about the wrong-headedness of arguing whether or not something that takes place in a videogame (or fiction book, movie etc) is "real". Part of it is the fault of internet fan culture - the whole concept of "canon" has been taken over by rabid fanboys and girls - to the point where people think arguing about "canon" is arguing whether something "really happened or not". People pick and choose what they believe is real, when it comes to fictional worlds that they love - and use the excuse of "Oh, that isn't canon" or whatever if something they don't like happens. Sorry guys. None of it's real. All of it is just invented for our entertainment. Ambiguous endings like this one are brilliant - they give you so much to think about about. Consider this - an ending which most of you would probably think (at the moment, before you've seen it) would be far more satisfying: At the end of Origins, the O4 rescue Samantha from Agartha. She tells them that she has been sent back in time from the point Richtofen banished her from the MPD in Moon. When she arrived back in WW1 times she met the original Demonic Announcer - the "something far worse than you" guy - the MOTD announcer, basically Satan himself. Satan possesses her and uses her knowledge of the future to trap the entire world in a time loop - constantly forced to relive the 20th century - man's most destructive and violent hour, two world wars, atomic bombs, concentration camps etc. All ending of course in zombie apocalypse. This is how he's able to give futuristic weaponry to prisoners in Alcatraz, and from chalk drawings on the wall - he's taken Sam's memories of these things from the future, and just spread them out through time. The whole storyline, from Nacht to Buried, is caused by the Devil, taking Samantha's "memories" of the future and using them to sculpt the world in his image. At the end of the easter Egg, we are given two choices - take Sam's side, and "break the cycle" again, freeing her and leaving the 20th century free to happen without the devil's influence. Hell , she could possibly even avert the world wars from ever happening, with her future knowledge combined with the powers she acquired in the MPD and in Agartha. Or take Satan's side, and have the 20th century unfold the way we know it does (except with zombies, and the world destroyed by Maxis or Richtofen at the end). Ok, on the face of it that story would seem to cover all the bases, right? But - it's absolutely terrible! The most cliched ending imaginable.If it actually played out like that, Zombies becomes nothing more than another "sci fi" good v evil storyline, cliched heroes, cliched enemy (Satan? really?) I thought that ending up in about two minutes, writing it as I went. Treyarch could have chosen to gone down that path if they wanted, very easily, but I for one am very glad they didn't. They've basically avoided the "Lost" route. Lost's ending sucked because they tried to explain all the mysteries, and really there was no believable way to do that. So they came up with some daft "good v evil" concept and a cave with a very important light in it (still makes me LOL when I think about it to be honest). By explaining everything , they removed all of the mystery, and all of the secrets - making the whole 8-year storyline seem flat. As far as Lost goes, I would have far preferred the "They are all dead" or "They are all in purgatory" explanations that people thought the series was going to end with. In my opinion the only reason they didn't do that (bear with me - talking about Lost still but it is relevant to Zombs) is that TOO MANY PEOPLE HAD GUESSED IT! Meaning felt they had to come up with an alternative explanation that actually "covered all the bases". Which they did, and as we know, the majority of us found it incredibly unsatisfying. Treyarch did the opposite. They were brave enough to go with the obvious ending (like I said before, it's been obvious throughout (in retrospect...) that it was all a kids' game. So many clues ...) They saw it through and came out with the ending they had always intended, and didn't do some last-minute rewrite just so they could say "Haha, see you were WRONG! we do have a proper ending, with all the secrets explained (ruined) and all the mysteries solved (made boring)" - like, in my opinion, the Lost writers did. Good on them. And, then the magnificent curveball ("My dad's got a plan") which means it is quite possible that this isn't the end at all...

It's clever as hell because it fits in so much of the story - the way things keep going around in circles, and the "Have we been here before..?" stuff - kids play the same favourite games over and over. The hell hounds fit in - obviously Samantha's dog would be pretty devastating to their game when he leaps in and starts tearing up the toys, like dogs do. Can't think of the explanation for how Maxis taking control (briefly) fits into the meta-world explanation. And the MOTD announcer, and hundreds of other things...but I'm sure people will come up with interesting theories about it that I can't wait to read.

I think it was a fantastic ending. There have been hints right from the start- so many - that it was a child's game. Richtofen and Sam both say as much several times over the years. The way they swap turns at taking control. The points thing, and the way it confuses the characters who don't have a clue why Sam and Richie are talking about "points". Think about the way imaginative children play with toys - mixing them all up together and having adventures with robots versus action men and whatever completely random things are lying around - even toys that don't fit in with the others at all (Leroy?) I definitely used to make my miniature soldiers ride around on the back of my sister's My Little Ponies. It's a beautiful ending in my opinion and also raises a lot of questions (which is the best sort of ending really - we moan about it but it keeps us thinking about the story long after a conventional "flat" ending where all the storylines are resolved and everyone lives happily ever after). As far as the setting goes, I think it's a possibility the children's game is taking place during the Black Ops 2 storyline - there are sirens going off, which probably means some kind of world-wide war is going on like in the campaign storylines, and it's clearly supposed to be a modern or near-modern setting. And then the "My dad's got a plan..." line is the final curve-ball - genius! Anyone old enough to remember Monkey Island 2's ending will love the ending of this game. I can see why kids might be pissed off. For those who don't remember it this game pretty much rips off the ending of MI2 - which I played and finished when I was a kid and to be honest, it pissed me off then as well! But in the many years between I've come to see it as a piece of genuinely great storytelling. I'm confident that Zombies will be seen in the same light by most people eventually.

Richtofen is insane, and also very childish, he treats everything like a big game so I think this is quite in keeping with his character, particularly how it has developed at the end of BO and throughout BO2. Where are all these letters being found? I've not really been keeping up with this and don't have time to read through this whole thread right now ...

I think (and hope) that the final explanation is going to involve a time-loop, like the Alcatraz one but on a bigger scale. Remember the intro for Die Rise? We clearly see the new 4 being killed by zombies (I can't remember exactly what happens, but we definitely see Russman killed I think). Yet there he is again, at the start of the level - and one of them says "We have been here before". I think this was the biggest clue that the New 4 are trapped inside a time-loop, and the easter egg on the final map will revolve around breaking out of it(which will maybe 'mend the rift' as well). Remember that the Zombie Controller during WW1 era - where it all starts - is most likely going to be the same one as during MOTD - i.e the being who instigated that time-loop to trap Sal, Weasel etc, so why could he not have started up some sort of time-loop in 1914 to trap the Original 4 as well? Basically, all of Zombies is a time-loop anyway - the heroes survive for as long as they can before finally getting overrun, then we restart the match and it all begins again from round 1. Round Infinity in Mined Games was another clue about this. Incorporating this into the storyline somehow would be a very clever move on Treyarch's part, and a clever comment of the nature of storytelling in videogames.