Mob of the Dead and the Art of Writing for Games



After mixed reactions to their first major change to the Zombies formula with Tranzit, and similar reception to the follow-up with Die Rise, with Mob of the Dead the hype for Black Ops 2 Zombies was revitalized and the direction was set for the next two and a half full games.

“A Zombies Retrospective” is a series in which I play through each Call of Duty Treyarch Zombies map chronologically, and analyze its place in the series.

Media:
Bioshock
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Silent Hill 2
A Bronx Tale (1993) dir. Chazz Palminteri
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) dir. Don Siegel
Goodfellas (1990) dir. Martin Scorsese
Reservoir Dogs (1992) dir. Quentin Tarantino
Silent Hill (2006) dir. Christophe Gans
The Sopranos S3E2 – Proshai, Livushka (2001)
Mob of the Dead – “Where Are We Going” Trailer
Mob of the Dead – Official Trailer
YouTube Video Footage – “Jason Blundell ARRIVES… w/ Something Very Special! (The Reveal)” from JCBackfire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zwOnvnM1Fw)

“Promising Relationship” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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21 thoughts on “Mob of the Dead and the Art of Writing for Games”

  1. Tranzit: one way forwards
    Die Rise: two ways forward
    Mob if the dead: every room has 2 or 3 new rooms to enter
    Buried: one way forwards
    Origins: spit paths, reconnect & complete first loop or to the mound, then the church, then collect-athon & a unique wonder weapon for each player

    Seems like the different lead designer had a large role in the changes we liked most to be honest.

    I don't want to be mean to game creators that have passion, but replayability needs options not linear, and the realistic characters would have been cool if not compared to the obnoxiously hilarious original crew.

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  2. YES WHITE CLIFF, YOU'RE GROWING. MY GUY IS GROWING! FROM HUNDREDS OF VIEWS TO TENS OF THOUSANDS! YOUR EFFORT IS NOT GOING UNNOTICED. ♥ YOUR EVALUATIONS OF THESE MAPS ARE BEAUTIFUL AND CONSTRUCTED MAJESTICALLY.

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  3. Hey man much love for putting this retrospective out. As a kid I never got past a CoD after Black Ops 1, so it's real interesting to see this culture I rubbed shoulders with for such a short time in such a digestible form. I look forward to the videos on future maps because it's all more or less new to me, and while there's videos that exist to analyze the plot there's very little out there about the community history and gameplay side of things.

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  4. The most impressive thing about this map is that it's a multi-generational fan favorite. A lot of us that were playing zombies in our middle/high school years still have fond memories of this map and may consider it a favorite AND younger players who weren't playing zombies at release have gone back to it and fallen in love with it. Unlike some of the other older zombies maps, Mob has stood the test of time entirely off of its quality and design rather than nostalgia.

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  5. Huge props for bringing up the concept behind creative leads and how they aren't the sole reason behind greatness. And never before have I wanted to play Mob of the Dead more than I do after watching this video! I missed out on it during its launch, sadly, but now I understand why it is so beloved.

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  6. While I'm not the biggest fan of Where Are We Going, there is this immortal moment where my friends started the song and after that were waiting for me on the gondola and I couldn't find the damn thing and got mocked the entire time by them just saying "Where are you going?"

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  7. I hate this map for basic reasons map layout was bad no good training spot and every 2 second you going to face to face with zombie. And setup Tedious more than anything yes late game you become OP but only interesting thing that keeps you going wonder weapon when you upgrade to acid it becomes auto pilot mod easy hit the floor and thats it. Finding items and get to Pack a Pubch take years other than that its good but these problems huge. Thats why I love BO1 most.

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