@@ibruceeasily1728 the "a" does belong. It would work without it, but in my opinion sounds better with the a / more formal. I think the "a" makes it more singular.
It must have been awful at first not being used to shadows and having no easy maps, but shadows is imo the best map ever made. When you do good on shadows it is actually satisfying
I have every bo3 dlc , but I always play SOE, for some reason the way the map looks is soo pleasing too look at , the most annoying thing is doing the rituals each game
I hated this map on release but it’s honestly a favorite now for me, the run of mob of the dead and origins at the end of bo2 then followed by shadows, the giant and then der eisendrache in the beginning of bo3 was the best run of the whole series
Saying "OG players since WAW didn't like shadows" is simply wrong. On release shadows was loved by streamers and OG players. COD3 was my first COD, but WAW really got me into COD and zombies. BO3 was the last zombies I actually enjoyed. On release (I preordered at game stop lmao) shadows was loved. Go back and watch easter egg hunts. The vibes were immaculate. Say you didn't play zombies until BO4 without saying you didn't play zombies until BO4💀
Funny to think that shadows of evil suffered a reverse tranzit, a lot hated the map at the start, then the more they played it, the more they started to actually enjoy it and see how great the map was. I was one of those who hated shadows then started to love it
Shadows Of Evil. The map where I have no clue what to do. I don't think I've ever even seen that Pack-A-Punch fight with the Shadow Man. I just train zombies right outside that door and eventually it's open.
As a Super-Fan. I know how to do it. I just dont fucking care to do it. When I know my 30 minutes of effort are going to be wasted immediately upon Game-Over.
@@ZombieSlayerrrrr The difference is that, in those 30 minutes, you're having fun killing zombies instead of running around completing mostly unintuitive easter egg steps
@@MoistMarsupial And you have to keep Zombies alive during those pap steps? If anything SoE is probably way better then the holy grail of Origins and Mob in that Point since you dont need that much points + SoE has more space. Compare the washing room in Mob or the Generators on Origins to SoE Rituals. 1 Minute more Setup for SoE sure thats that. Can keep killing Zombies, your Screen doesnt shake like crazy due to brutus and the Panzer doesnt hook you across the map And Mob and intuitiv? Mob does a shit job of explaing its Afterlive system while SoE has clues all over the place + if you have Sound on my Guy Shadow man is quiet in your neck about those Rituals(Just Like Samantha about the staffs and richtofen about the Generators and the PaP machine on the mountain, and i think weasel about the plane but i am not sure about that) We dont even need to pull the Mob and Origins comparision. Is Ascension intuitiv ? Is Shang intuitiv? Everything but argueably CoTD and Moon after Kino wasnt intuitiv. So for a map that lets you do more however leads you into the somewhat right direction to be less fun than those systems is quiet a hairpull isnt it ? I get that its more to do, totally with you on that end. But its not even an 30 min effort if people gave it a Chance and some Arguments are just restrictions people set on their own, like you not killing Zombies.
Absolutely amazing video. Perfectly reflects how I feel about Shadows. It's an absolutely fantastic map, but it's also overwhelming for people that aren't coming in hot off the tails of something like Mob or Origins. Really I think the casual audience would have been much kinder if The Giant had launched alongside it to appeal to their needs.
the giant was available at the same time as SOE, it just *came with the season pass at the time, so people either didn't care enough to buy it or couldn't afford it at the time, i wish it were free on release but they were there to juxtapose each other
On paper, this map should've been my younger selfs wet dream. Lovecraftian elements? Better graphics and more zombies? Yes! Only when I loaded up shadows of evil, and played it more and more, I found myself liking it less and less and less, despite really wanting to love it. I adore the aesthetic, but the map design to me was absolutely garbage, maybe I'm biased because I'm not a fan of black ops 3 in general. I was also not a fan of the growing complexity added to zombies, to me, origins and mob of the dead was the perfect balance of having lots to do, without feeling overwhelmed. To add to that, I always hated the gobblegum system which was just another nail in the coffin for me. All around, I wish I could love bo3 as much as some do, It does have some of the best zombies maps in the franchise, but I just can't bring myself around to loving, or even liking it. This began my distancing from the franchise, with advanced warfare being the last cod I sinked a lot of hours into.
It's less complicated than origins imo, because I don't have to pull out my phone when I want to upgrade something. Like, who remembers the ice staff symbols? that's such a big ask to just use the wonder weapon.
@@cobrakaineverdies-i2k the biggest issue is that all you do is learn them, then play a laughably easy, chore filled and boring version of cod zombies for 2 hours before it becomes remotely difficult-about the time I end the game because life is busy.
Can't forget that on launch, we were playing an especially unrefined version of the map that wasn't quite balanced to near-perfection and quality of life features like we see now. The map on-launch was particularly awful to play with randoms (how many of us were playing due to the disconnect between generations and the lack of friends who owned the latest and greatest consoles). Ritual times were ridiculously slow unless all 4 players were present in the room. Ritual items were also player-specific and could only be held one at a time, meaning only the one who picked it up could place it down on its respective table. This meant that nearly every public match, you'd have a clueless random or an intentional troll with no mic/communication stumble along and pick up one of the items, leaving it forever in their inventory and soft-locking everyone else out of pack-a-punch and progressing the map. And as mentioned in the video, the only other, simple map option was The Giant, a remaster of Der Riese locked behind an extra $50 paywall (much later on, they made the map available for a $5 purchase, but that was far too late, as the remaining community was pretty much just those accustomed to the more complex nature of zombies or already owned the season pass). So bo3 zombies, at launch, was a pretty miserable experience for most of us. I desperately wanted to enjoy the gamemode, as I was still on the bo2 high, but SOE was damn near unplayable unless you had a plethora of YT tutorials and very competent friends on the current console generation. It is amazing in retrospect though, nowadays I regard bo3 as objectively the best game for zombies. Even Shadows in its modern state makes it to my top 5 or top 10 at the bare minimum. But back in 2015, I struggled to accept bo3 as anything but the start of the downfall for zombies, and one of the most dissapointing gameplay experiences ever.
I've been eagerly awaiting this one! WaW Nacht was my favorite map for many years. There's plenty of others I liked a lot, but nothing beat that simple "trapped in an abandoned building watching zombies stumble out of the fog" creepy factor. That "Night of the Living Dead" vibe. Then not long ago I played this map after my best friend gave me their copy of Blops 3 (they got a digital only PS5 and didnt need the disc anymore). As someone who is both a huge fan of Lovecraftian horror and classic Film Noir? This was the map that finally gave me a new contender for "favorite". I'm still not wild about how complicated the map is for a casual zombie fan like me, but the 1940's era city is gorgeous, the jazz music is perfect, the classic Noir character archetypes are great and the Cthulhu monsters are the cherry on top. I just fell in love with Shadows!
You'll get used to it. I remember how painful it was at launch (especially due to the broken Zombies AI) but now, me and my friends can literally have casual matches on Shadows. We know what to do so we do it while killing Zombies and it feels like an adventure. Constantly moving across the map, killing zombies, doing rituals, fighting Margwas, picking up parts etc... Absolute incredible map that ages like fine wine.
I hated this map, wtf dude you've changed my perspective to a somewhat positive one. Stella work yet again, makes me miss those 3am Kino sessions with the boys.
dude what you said about the setting change was on the money. I remember being so outraged by the shift in setting. I think it was just so unexpected and not really eased into either. BAM! now the entire world is tentacles. Especially when everyone was wanting answers for how Origins ended. Should not have been the map on disc.
Fantastic series. I played Nacht, Shi No Numa, Der Riese and Kino and then took a decade break from zombies (stopped playing CoD entirely, but saw occasional videos), so these videos have been fascinating for me to slowly go through the journey. What sets these retrospectives apart is not only the detail, but the weighting of both the casual and hardcore audience. I distinctly remember looking at Shadows on release and thinking "that's so involved, I don't think I'd know where to begin'. Recently rediscovered zombies for myself and while I haven't played much (I only have BO4 launch maps at the minute), I've been watching a ton of videos on it and this series is an insta-watch for me. Another certified banger.
I would like to personally recommend you try out Cold War if you can! It really revitalized the casual scene and it is now my favorite zombies mode ever. I stopped playing midway through BO2, only briefly playing Shadows on release and skipping BO4, and can confidently say I adore CW Zombies!
Bo3 zombies, without counting PC customs, has 14 maps with all dlc and chronicles. Imo it's the zombies entry where fun is prioritized a little bit over game balance and every map looks great visually. Bo2 and Cold War are really great too
@@Aigis31 played zombies since I was like 8 and completed waw the first time, and I couldn't agree more. During lockdown I stayed in a flat with friends like 4 of us just playing warzone and they saw me playing bo2/3 zombies and they never played but when cold war came out all of us got it I got them into zombies and they fucking loved it
When you look at BO1 and 2 they both launched with a map which was fairly small, simple and easy. And the second map which was larger, more complicated and harder. And that worked very well in both games. So I did always wonder why BO3 launched with only one map that was very large, complicated and difficult as the only option. Because it would just turn the casual audience which is most of the playerbase off to zombies immediately. Especially when they had a second casual map right there and they didn't put it the base game.
Let’s be real, Tranzit was a complicated map aswell. If you’d played BO2 mob of the dead you’d instantly understand shadows of evil. Yes it would take a bit of learning but in my opinion wonder weapons and pack a punch shouldn’t just be handed to the player.
@@DBFARuler @Ismail Mod was the second DLC so the people still playing zombies when the second DLC came out were people that were invested in the mode. So in BO3 when the casual audience's only option is a big, complex and difficult map they'll hate it. Your base game map has to cater to the casual audience because the casual audience is the vast majority of the player base. So if they don't like the first map then they aren't going to pay for another one.
I hate how much Zombies took off as a mode. Don't get me twisted, I LOVE Zombies for some casual fun, and hardcore grinding for whatever it is I'm trying to do. But every fucking CoD keeps trying to make Zombies modes instead of what their games used to have. What made MW2 and MW3 so good was the fact their Spec Ops had a mix of campaign style missions, co-op missions and survival missions. MW3 even took it a step further and had one of the best survival type gamemodes and even had Chaos Survival which was dumb fun. But now it's all about ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES.
All my friends hate on this map and I used to not like it either but then I LEARNED IT and let me just say I count myself as a casual and learning this map was actually pretty easy the more you do it the more it becomes as easy as just killing zombies the whole game and it becomes so much fun just killing margwas and unlocking more shit, this map introduced me to getting wonder weapons and Easter eggs and for that alone I praise it
I remember watching the shadows of evil reveal and being stunned. It was too loud, too overproduced and too just… weird for zombies. Obviously zombies has only gotten crazier since but I have such a weird relationship with this map. It’s both great and awful as a zombies map.
shadows of evil is lowkey one of my top 5 maps oat. the easter egg grind is pretty fun, the vibes are immaculate, and it set up the story very well. had me excited to continue playing. esp since the map right after was a top 3 map oat. i wish The Giant wasnt paid DLC tho. only having Shadows wo having to spend more $ is def polarizing
I'll immediately Counter your opening line. No. I'm a Fan of Zombies. But Modern Warfare 3's Survival would be MAGICAL with modern Killstreaks and AI companions. It's just that the Devs arnt that good. And can only work with Braindead Zombies. And make half-decent looking maps. But not both. Ascension= not-braindead zombies shitty looking reused map. Chronicles Ascension= looks amazing. Removed the Non-Braindead zombies and replaced them with the "New Standard" of Cocaine-Fueled Mike-Tysons.
Shadows of Evil made me give up on BO3 Zombies when it first came out, which is a shame because now Der Eisdendrache is probably my favorite map ever. But I've been interested in learning it and giving it another chance. Looking forward to the DE video.
another cool detail is im pretty sure that those perk bottles that help you figure out which district has which perk are the bo2 perk bottle design and not the bo3 bottles
I completely agree shadows being the only launch map was a mistake, and either the giant should have been on disc too or an original and more simple map should have been there in the mould of a kino or der riese. Personally I can't get into the complexity on my own much, if other people tell me what to do for an ee, I'll try but mostly my map knowledge goes to hitting pack a punch and the music ee. I think a side effect of the maps getting more complex with the potential for a more powerful player is the devs tried to met this challenge which to me is kinda misguided to an extent. While it keeps the game challenging and fresh to the experienced player, new players can be totally left in the dust at times and my biggest example is origins (I've not done too much shadows sorry), but the panzer at round 8 is such a huge skill check unless you have got to pap or got a staff which is pretty hard for new players to do that fast, and things like that keep me away from most of black ops 3 unless im grouped up with friends which barely happens, and going online on pc now is a massive security risk, because hackers are everywhere and they sometimes just cheat the fun out the game by turning on godmode for everyone or unlimited powerups, or they max level you give practically unlimited divinium and level up all the guns removing the grind of outside the game too. It's super frustrating, b03 is a game I wanna love it plays well and the weapons are mostly very fun, but i only tend to have fun on bo3 maps with friends, or zombie chronicles. Sorry for the rambling long comment, great video series keep it up.
Totally agree, I actually mentioned the same thing as you in the Origins video; the fact that the player can *theoretically* get very powerful means the developers have to balance the game around that power. But then if you don’t do all the little secrets, that means you end up way *behind* the power curve!
@@whitecliffgames yeah I definitely feel it's a flaw of modern zombies I've played (not done black ops 4 yet I've only got into zombies in the last year). Thanks for the reply
14:13 thats wrong. Origens was notorious for punishing the player for moving... mud everywhere and those stupid robots... Ascension was 10 times easyer if it comes to moving around the map.
I saw the release of shadows of evil at Comic Con LIVE, and met the ultimis crew alomg side the SOE crew. So when i played this ot was my new favorite map. Mob of the dead and shadows are my favorite maps. I also enjoyed voyage of dispair and wish i couldve played dead of the night
i love shadows but it really started treyarch's streak of mostly hardcore community maps instead of the balance of both ee and casual. all the maps after that except for the zc dlc and 9 and classified in bo4, had everything tied to the easter egg. origins and mob where still fairly casual cause it was clear what to do and where to go, power generators in origins to get pap, build the plane in mob to get pap, simple and easy. shadows it's you have to find stuff that belongs to the 4 characters, fill the soul key 4 times, open up parts of the map with beast mode, and then go into the subway, put the key down, do a small sequence, THEN you got pap. first time i played shadows i had no idea what to do or where to go to get pap. then the following maps doubled down on it all the way to tag der toten, i for the life of me could not tell you how to turn on pap in 90% Of the maps in bo3 and bo4, thankfully they fixed that with cold war.
I personally do have a setup process for soe that is exactly the same, since you can get pap open in round 2 you don't need jug I tent to go footlight first because the ritual has a larger training area which is useful because I bring 6 keepers. I always go for waterfront last as it has a smaller training area so I like to get the shield first just to be safe
So many maps will consist of a few spaces you can actually be, and the rest of the map is narrow death traps that you sprint through as you move from location to location. That's really not the case with Shadows. Basically anywhere you go you're going to be in a location that has had so much thought and care put into it's design. And no matter where that downed teammate is there's a way of getting there on time. The 4 districts really should have been released as stand alone challenge maps like they did with Tranzit - the ritual rooms are iconic and it's kind of sad the high round community has never had any reason to make use of them cause each one (okay only a masochist is going to grind boxing gym) are masterfully crafted training spaces. Each of the 3 branches offer enough viable training spaces to support 4 players. The aesthetics and all that are the cherry on top, but to me it's the map design itself that makes Shadows the best map we've ever gotten. No map has had as much time and effort put into it, and it really does show.
I’ve never been good at Shadows, but once I learned a bit more about the map I found myself having a lot more fun. I never looked anything up either, you can figure a lot out just by running about and noodling around
I played zombies since the beginning. I was there day one for each waw bop 1 and 2 map releases. I was so hyped for 3 but when it came out this map killed it for me. It was so confusing the whole theme was thrown upside down and out the window. At the time I hated Cod for advanced exo suit ginger bread looking ass bullshit that I was already done with the multiplayer since ghost. But zombies was the last thing in cod I could hold on to. Black ops 3 was the last cod I ever bought. Coming back to it now it is not as bad as i remember. I honestly dislike lovecracrft style of the map. I missed the ww1/ww2/cold war aesthetic. MOTD was fantastic Orgins was god tier and moon was and is the GOAT.
I don't think there's ever been a map that grew on me more than shadows of evil did. I hated that map on launch. It's one of my personal favorites now though.
I think the zombie community sometimes forgets how poor ghosts and aw really were for the rest of cod, it brought a lot of mp players back to bo2 until bo3 came out and a lot of us came back and played zombies. Treyarch knew this, they released the first ever camo dlc’s during a different games life cycle which was huge back then and it was based of zombies! They also had so much pressure to get every aspect right, they didn’t but bo3 is still the last cod game a truly put my life into. Since then it’s only been downhill in my personal opinion
I think once Origins came out thats when they really amped on all the bullshit fetch quests. Atleast in the old maps doing the easter egg shit wasnt required to just enjoy killing zombies and getting high rounds
I would honestly rather have an insanely complex map like shadows on launch than be stuck with town, farm, nuketown, and tranzit again. Shadows is my favorite map tho
Shadows of Evil will always be my favorite map. I feel like there is stuff to do without it being stupid and annoying like origins. Maybe that’s just me tho
I appreciate your perspective and agree on the main complexity elements not being intuitive, but speaking from someone who played zombies since 2008, what really made me NOT like SOE was the cosmic horror. It was so off-putting from someone who fell in love with the game during the Era of strange, but somehow, almost realistic German science experiments gone wrong. Due to this, I am also not really a fan of MOD either. Both of these maps were just too unbelievable to really get into. They didn't scare me the sublet way Pre BO2 zombies did... Origins was borderline as well as again I think Zombies loses a lot from not being linked to N@zi Germany... and still to this day, I don't think they have ever recovered the Mystique that surrounded WaW & BO1...
@Combine I would say you're right, but I have to admit that JZ started us down the path of no return, not JB. Tranzit, Die Rise, and especially buried were way unnecessarily complex and again took us away from the original "almost real" feel of Pre BO2 Zombies.
Ahh shadows of evil. I have a love/hate relationship with this one. I love the noir style and the jazz. The characters are also great. The apothican servant kicks ass too and I was able to figure out how to get it without looking up a guide. However, I can’t lie, I don’t like the introduction of the apothicans, the shadow man is writing at it’s worst, and I just don’t like it when maps cater so much to those who love opening TH-cam guides. But once you do bite the bullet and learn how to set up, it becomes second nature and it’s actually a bit engaging. Shadows I love now more than I did when it came out, but I don’t find myself coming back to this one often
I'd be lying if I agreed with your synapses of Mob and Origins. Those maps are fun one-offs, and not something I could sink time into anymore. Shadows is pretty similar to me. I love it far more than the flawed BO2 iterations of this same design... But complexity wasn't handled correctly in Zombies in my opinion. Which is why we have massive flops like; BO4, IW, WW2 and even parts of BO3. That had dire consequences, creating things like CW Outbreak and Vanguard. Two things which the franchise deserves to die over. Zombie slaying is at its most fun, when it is simple, straight to the point, and you have many options to go about it. I far prefer the Victis BO2 maps for this reason. All three can be played in a number of entirely unique ways, and there are no systems that outright force you to play a certain way. Mob, Origins, Shadows all have strict requirements that must be met in order to open things up, get perks, pack and so on. It's unnecessary, and DE shows this. In fact, several maps in and around this time demonstrate how that this direction was not the right way as a whole. One-offs sure, but not whole maps in its entirety. I find my friends and I are more willing to go back and play; WaW, BO1 and BO2 on Plutonium, before we'd ever touch the newer modes and maps though we've played them all (except the trash-heap that is Vanguard.) We even discovered BO1 Zombies VR which is by far the coolest way to play, and it doesn't need this level of complication to be fun and engaging. BO3 is something I'd return to if it weren't for the huge (unmentioned) elephant in the room that destroys the game as a whole, which is: the hackers that can literally get into your PC while you play. Listen, I'm not trying to bash WhiteCliff here, but this absolutely should've been mentioned. Sugar-coating these reviews with your rose-tinted nostalgia glasses on, and potentially convincing people to purchase what is on all accounts a security risk without mentioning the slew of problems it has, is wholly disingenuous.
When you uploaded this video yesterday it was also both a misstep and a masterpiece
Wait what? Does the “a” not belong? Why? How do I find out this mystery?
@@ibruceeasily1728 the "a" does belong. It would work without it, but in my opinion sounds better with the a / more formal. I think the "a" makes it more singular.
This map is so awesome! It’s such an aesthetic triumph and once you get past the learning curve it’s not too hard and it’s really fun!
I hated shadows when it first came out but once you really get into it you begin to love it
Yooo I found you yesterday and binged almost every episode!
The Widows WIne transition was inspired. Bravissimo Sir.
It must have been awful at first not being used to shadows and having no easy maps, but shadows is imo the best map ever made. When you do good on shadows it is actually satisfying
I never knew you could tell where the perk machines were by the bottles in the Junction! Holy shit, learn something new every day.
I have every bo3 dlc , but I always play SOE, for some reason the way the map looks is soo pleasing too look at , the most annoying thing is doing the rituals each game
I hated this map on release but it’s honestly a favorite now for me, the run of mob of the dead and origins at the end of bo2 then followed by shadows, the giant and then der eisendrache in the beginning of bo3 was the best run of the whole series
Time to order some food
Saying "OG players since WAW didn't like shadows" is simply wrong. On release shadows was loved by streamers and OG players. COD3 was my first COD, but WAW really got me into COD and zombies. BO3 was the last zombies I actually enjoyed. On release (I preordered at game stop lmao) shadows was loved. Go back and watch easter egg hunts. The vibes were immaculate. Say you didn't play zombies until BO4 without saying you didn't play zombies until BO4💀
Nah you just got nostalgia goggles on this map was hatttttted on launch
Its ok but its such a hassle to setup
Overrated map
Funny to think that shadows of evil suffered a reverse tranzit, a lot hated the map at the start, then the more they played it, the more they started to actually enjoy it and see how great the map was. I was one of those who hated shadows then started to love it
Same when i first time played shadow i was really hate it but after time it' become my favorite zombie map of all time but tranzit a still hate it XD
I like it over Der Eisnedrach cuz FUQ that Easter Egg
@@marthflores3515All the easter eggs suck to do lol.
I'm the opposite, I really liked this map at first but now I dislike this map, it's just not fun in my opinion.
I rather play Gorod krovi in bo3
Shadows Of Evil. The map where I have no clue what to do. I don't think I've ever even seen that Pack-A-Punch fight with the Shadow Man. I just train zombies right outside that door and eventually it's open.
As a Super-Fan.
I know how to do it. I just dont fucking care to do it. When I know my 30 minutes of effort are going to be wasted immediately upon Game-Over.
@@TheBuster0926 Sounds like every Zombies Game tho. Spawn , do stuff, die. Acomplish nothing in the long run.
@@ZombieSlayerrrrr The difference is that, in those 30 minutes, you're having fun killing zombies instead of running around completing mostly unintuitive easter egg steps
@@MoistMarsupial And you have to keep Zombies alive during those pap steps? If anything SoE is probably way better then the holy grail of Origins and Mob in that Point since you dont need that much points + SoE has more space. Compare the washing room in Mob or the Generators on Origins to SoE Rituals. 1 Minute more Setup for SoE sure thats that. Can keep killing Zombies, your Screen doesnt shake like crazy due to brutus and the Panzer doesnt hook you across the map
And Mob and intuitiv? Mob does a shit job of explaing its Afterlive system while SoE has clues all over the place + if you have Sound on my Guy Shadow man is quiet in your neck about those Rituals(Just Like Samantha about the staffs and richtofen about the Generators and the PaP machine on the mountain, and i think weasel about the plane but i am not sure about that)
We dont even need to pull the Mob and Origins comparision. Is Ascension intuitiv ? Is Shang intuitiv? Everything but argueably CoTD and Moon after Kino wasnt intuitiv. So for a map that lets you do more however leads you into the somewhat right direction to be less fun than those systems is quiet a hairpull isnt it ?
I get that its more to do, totally with you on that end. But its not even an 30 min effort if people gave it a Chance and some Arguments are just restrictions people set on their own, like you not killing Zombies.
@@ZombieSlayerrrrr nacht der untoten better nhl
Absolutely amazing video. Perfectly reflects how I feel about Shadows. It's an absolutely fantastic map, but it's also overwhelming for people that aren't coming in hot off the tails of something like Mob or Origins. Really I think the casual audience would have been much kinder if The Giant had launched alongside it to appeal to their needs.
the giant was available at the same time as SOE, it just *came with the season pass at the time, so people either didn't care enough to buy it or couldn't afford it at the time, i wish it were free on release but they were there to juxtapose each other
It did though
On paper, this map should've been my younger selfs wet dream. Lovecraftian elements? Better graphics and more zombies? Yes! Only when I loaded up shadows of evil, and played it more and more, I found myself liking it less and less and less, despite really wanting to love it. I adore the aesthetic, but the map design to me was absolutely garbage, maybe I'm biased because I'm not a fan of black ops 3 in general. I was also not a fan of the growing complexity added to zombies, to me, origins and mob of the dead was the perfect balance of having lots to do, without feeling overwhelmed. To add to that, I always hated the gobblegum system which was just another nail in the coffin for me. All around, I wish I could love bo3 as much as some do, It does have some of the best zombies maps in the franchise, but I just can't bring myself around to loving, or even liking it. This began my distancing from the franchise, with advanced warfare being the last cod I sinked a lot of hours into.
Sucks that you're missing on the best maps zombies has to offer because you can't take the time to learn them. Oh well
@@cobrakaineverdies-i2ktriggered
maybe not really a zombies fan but only your point of a bad map design was a bad
It's less complicated than origins imo, because I don't have to pull out my phone when I want to upgrade something. Like, who remembers the ice staff symbols? that's such a big ask to just use the wonder weapon.
@@cobrakaineverdies-i2k the biggest issue is that all you do is learn them, then play a laughably easy, chore filled and boring version of cod zombies for 2 hours before it becomes remotely difficult-about the time I end the game because life is busy.
Shadows of evil is a great map but a terrible launch map
Can't forget that on launch, we were playing an especially unrefined version of the map that wasn't quite balanced to near-perfection and quality of life features like we see now.
The map on-launch was particularly awful to play with randoms (how many of us were playing due to the disconnect between generations and the lack of friends who owned the latest and greatest consoles). Ritual times were ridiculously slow unless all 4 players were present in the room. Ritual items were also player-specific and could only be held one at a time, meaning only the one who picked it up could place it down on its respective table. This meant that nearly every public match, you'd have a clueless random or an intentional troll with no mic/communication stumble along and pick up one of the items, leaving it forever in their inventory and soft-locking everyone else out of pack-a-punch and progressing the map.
And as mentioned in the video, the only other, simple map option was The Giant, a remaster of Der Riese locked behind an extra $50 paywall (much later on, they made the map available for a $5 purchase, but that was far too late, as the remaining community was pretty much just those accustomed to the more complex nature of zombies or already owned the season pass). So bo3 zombies, at launch, was a pretty miserable experience for most of us. I desperately wanted to enjoy the gamemode, as I was still on the bo2 high, but SOE was damn near unplayable unless you had a plethora of YT tutorials and very competent friends on the current console generation.
It is amazing in retrospect though, nowadays I regard bo3 as objectively the best game for zombies. Even Shadows in its modern state makes it to my top 5 or top 10 at the bare minimum. But back in 2015, I struggled to accept bo3 as anything but the start of the downfall for zombies, and one of the most dissapointing gameplay experiences ever.
Well said, an enjoyable and agreeable read 👍
I've been eagerly awaiting this one! WaW Nacht was my favorite map for many years. There's plenty of others I liked a lot, but nothing beat that simple "trapped in an abandoned building watching zombies stumble out of the fog" creepy factor. That "Night of the Living Dead" vibe.
Then not long ago I played this map after my best friend gave me their copy of Blops 3 (they got a digital only PS5 and didnt need the disc anymore).
As someone who is both a huge fan of Lovecraftian horror and classic Film Noir? This was the map that finally gave me a new contender for "favorite". I'm still not wild about how complicated the map is for a casual zombie fan like me, but the 1940's era city is gorgeous, the jazz music is perfect, the classic Noir character archetypes are great and the Cthulhu monsters are the cherry on top. I just fell in love with Shadows!
You'll get used to it. I remember how painful it was at launch (especially due to the broken Zombies AI) but now, me and my friends can literally have casual matches on Shadows.
We know what to do so we do it while killing Zombies and it feels like an adventure. Constantly moving across the map, killing zombies, doing rituals, fighting Margwas, picking up parts etc...
Absolute incredible map that ages like fine wine.
No matter how many Shadows of Evil video essays I've seen, ima always click on a new one🤣
I hated this map, wtf dude you've changed my perspective to a somewhat positive one. Stella work yet again, makes me miss those 3am Kino sessions with the boys.
dude what you said about the setting change was on the money. I remember being so outraged by the shift in setting. I think it was just so unexpected and not really eased into either. BAM! now the entire world is tentacles. Especially when everyone was wanting answers for how Origins ended. Should not have been the map on disc.
I cancelled my special edition pre-order and never played a new zombies again after the SoE trailer dropped for that exact reason.
Fantastic series.
I played Nacht, Shi No Numa, Der Riese and Kino and then took a decade break from zombies (stopped playing CoD entirely, but saw occasional videos), so these videos have been fascinating for me to slowly go through the journey. What sets these retrospectives apart is not only the detail, but the weighting of both the casual and hardcore audience. I distinctly remember looking at Shadows on release and thinking "that's so involved, I don't think I'd know where to begin'.
Recently rediscovered zombies for myself and while I haven't played much (I only have BO4 launch maps at the minute), I've been watching a ton of videos on it and this series is an insta-watch for me. Another certified banger.
I would like to personally recommend you try out Cold War if you can! It really revitalized the casual scene and it is now my favorite zombies mode ever. I stopped playing midway through BO2, only briefly playing Shadows on release and skipping BO4, and can confidently say I adore CW Zombies!
Bo3 zombies, without counting PC customs, has 14 maps with all dlc and chronicles. Imo it's the zombies entry where fun is prioritized a little bit over game balance and every map looks great visually. Bo2 and Cold War are really great too
@@Aigis31 played zombies since I was like 8 and completed waw the first time, and I couldn't agree more. During lockdown I stayed in a flat with friends like 4 of us just playing warzone and they saw me playing bo2/3 zombies and they never played but when cold war came out all of us got it I got them into zombies and they fucking loved it
Fun Fact when you look up “Dear god, he’s British” most of the results are fnaf memes
Fun fact, I tried this and only had one fnaf meme come up
@@plus_one_hundred9817 huh.. for me my top 5 were fnaf meme vids titled ah he’s British and dawko meme review
black ops 3 campaign may have sucked but zombies is pretty good ngl
When you look at BO1 and 2 they both launched with a map which was fairly small, simple and easy. And the second map which was larger, more complicated and harder. And that worked very well in both games. So I did always wonder why BO3 launched with only one map that was very large, complicated and difficult as the only option. Because it would just turn the casual audience which is most of the playerbase off to zombies immediately. Especially when they had a second casual map right there and they didn't put it the base game.
Let’s be real, Tranzit was a complicated map aswell. If you’d played BO2 mob of the dead you’d instantly understand shadows of evil. Yes it would take a bit of learning but in my opinion wonder weapons and pack a punch shouldn’t just be handed to the player.
@@DBFARuler @Ismail Mod was the second DLC so the people still playing zombies when the second DLC came out were people that were invested in the mode. So in BO3 when the casual audience's only option is a big, complex and difficult map they'll hate it. Your base game map has to cater to the casual audience because the casual audience is the vast majority of the player base. So if they don't like the first map then they aren't going to pay for another one.
Nigga called tranzit fairly small,simple and easy 💀💀
@@byrite8112 No genius. Town is the small simple map Tranzit is the opposite
@@Chrisey96. Bruh, ain't nobody considering Town, Farm, or Bus depot the BO2 launch map
I hate how much Zombies took off as a mode. Don't get me twisted, I LOVE Zombies for some casual fun, and hardcore grinding for whatever it is I'm trying to do. But every fucking CoD keeps trying to make Zombies modes instead of what their games used to have. What made MW2 and MW3 so good was the fact their Spec Ops had a mix of campaign style missions, co-op missions and survival missions. MW3 even took it a step further and had one of the best survival type gamemodes and even had Chaos Survival which was dumb fun. But now it's all about ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES.
They should just leave it to treyarch games only
I don't know why but when SOE released I hated it it may have been me being young but now I see the masterpiece it is
All my friends hate on this map and I used to not like it either but then I LEARNED IT and let me just say I count myself as a casual and learning this map was actually pretty easy the more you do it the more it becomes as easy as just killing zombies the whole game and it becomes so much fun just killing margwas and unlocking more shit, this map introduced me to getting wonder weapons and Easter eggs and for that alone I praise it
So its easy and shit then cool.
Listening to the entire retrospective at work and just seeing now this just got uploaded made my day way better
I remember watching the shadows of evil reveal and being stunned. It was too loud, too overproduced and too just… weird for zombies. Obviously zombies has only gotten crazier since but I have such a weird relationship with this map. It’s both great and awful as a zombies map.
This is the new one.
Another great video as always! I really look forward to them.
You said you were going to do it and you did it, love a guy who keeps his promises
welcum
Shadows of Evil is my most played map by far, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.
shadows of evil is lowkey one of my top 5 maps oat. the easter egg grind is pretty fun, the vibes are immaculate, and it set up the story very well. had me excited to continue playing. esp since the map right after was a top 3 map oat. i wish The Giant wasnt paid DLC tho. only having Shadows wo having to spend more $ is def polarizing
Dude I had a seizure from that origins sped up footage please put a warning next time
Zombies at its peak for me!
I used to hate SOE. It's now my favourite map of all time. And Jeff Goldblum as Nero is absolutely perfect. My favourite celebrity character
just wanna say, for me and the boys, soe is still our go to bo3 map
This was definitely the end for me. Hard to get invested in the story when u can only progress from external sources.
Just binge watched this entire series, and I can't wait for the next video already. Amazing content bro.
Your getting better and better with each upload man. Keep it going 👍
Dude, your production value and scripts keep getting better and better; this is easily the best video in your entire series yet
I think the only thing that holds the map back for me is that there is no “fun” weapons in the box
The wonder wepond not that fun to mr either.
I'll immediately Counter your opening line.
No. I'm a Fan of Zombies. But Modern Warfare 3's Survival would be MAGICAL with modern Killstreaks and AI companions.
It's just that the Devs arnt that good. And can only work with Braindead Zombies. And make half-decent looking maps. But not both.
Ascension= not-braindead zombies shitty looking reused map.
Chronicles Ascension= looks amazing. Removed the Non-Braindead zombies and replaced them with the "New Standard" of Cocaine-Fueled Mike-Tysons.
Shadows of Evil made me give up on BO3 Zombies when it first came out, which is a shame because now Der Eisdendrache is probably my favorite map ever. But I've been interested in learning it and giving it another chance. Looking forward to the DE video.
Honestly if the giant was included without being a bonus zombies
Shadows would have really benefitted
all of your problems with the map 100% stem from how bad you are at bo3 zombies. mob of the dead is not fluid & natural to understand.
In Shi No Numa you can hear the correct perk jingle before opening the door.
Not on the original
10:18 take that L
20:00 theres a custom mapper named Verk0 thats giving TranZit the details it deserved, i would encourage everyone to take a look!
Imo shadows of Evil is the best map ever made. Once you understand everything it’s extremely fun and challenging. Not too hard but not too easy
24:01 to be fair.. Jackie f***** Vincent calls them meatballs too
Bo3 and bo4 were missteps imo. Doesn’t even feel like zombies and the weapons feel like bb guns
BO3 was the best entry.
another cool detail is im pretty sure that those perk bottles that help you figure out which district has which perk are the bo2 perk bottle design and not the bo3 bottles
Hated this map.
This the only map Ik every setup steps
It shouldn't have been the launch map.
after all these years I never knew about the free mega gobblegum and that you could upgrade your trip mines lol
I completely agree shadows being the only launch map was a mistake, and either the giant should have been on disc too or an original and more simple map should have been there in the mould of a kino or der riese. Personally I can't get into the complexity on my own much, if other people tell me what to do for an ee, I'll try but mostly my map knowledge goes to hitting pack a punch and the music ee. I think a side effect of the maps getting more complex with the potential for a more powerful player is the devs tried to met this challenge which to me is kinda misguided to an extent. While it keeps the game challenging and fresh to the experienced player, new players can be totally left in the dust at times and my biggest example is origins (I've not done too much shadows sorry), but the panzer at round 8 is such a huge skill check unless you have got to pap or got a staff which is pretty hard for new players to do that fast, and things like that keep me away from most of black ops 3 unless im grouped up with friends which barely happens, and going online on pc now is a massive security risk, because hackers are everywhere and they sometimes just cheat the fun out the game by turning on godmode for everyone or unlimited powerups, or they max level you give practically unlimited divinium and level up all the guns removing the grind of outside the game too. It's super frustrating, b03 is a game I wanna love it plays well and the weapons are mostly very fun, but i only tend to have fun on bo3 maps with friends, or zombie chronicles.
Sorry for the rambling long comment, great video series keep it up.
Totally agree, I actually mentioned the same thing as you in the Origins video; the fact that the player can *theoretically* get very powerful means the developers have to balance the game around that power. But then if you don’t do all the little secrets, that means you end up way *behind* the power curve!
@@whitecliffgames yeah I definitely feel it's a flaw of modern zombies I've played (not done black ops 4 yet I've only got into zombies in the last year). Thanks for the reply
14:13 thats wrong. Origens was notorious for punishing the player for moving... mud everywhere and those stupid robots...
Ascension was 10 times easyer if it comes to moving around the map.
I saw the release of shadows of evil at Comic Con LIVE, and met the ultimis crew alomg side the SOE crew. So when i played this ot was my new favorite map. Mob of the dead and shadows are my favorite maps. I also enjoyed voyage of dispair and wish i couldve played dead of the night
i love shadows but it really started treyarch's streak of mostly hardcore community maps instead of the balance of both ee and casual.
all the maps after that except for the zc dlc and 9 and classified in bo4, had everything tied to the easter egg.
origins and mob where still fairly casual cause it was clear what to do and where to go, power generators in origins to get pap, build the plane in mob to get pap, simple and easy.
shadows it's you have to find stuff that belongs to the 4 characters, fill the soul key 4 times, open up parts of the map with beast mode, and then go into the subway, put the key down, do a small sequence, THEN you got pap. first time i played shadows i had no idea what to do or where to go to get pap.
then the following maps doubled down on it all the way to tag der toten, i for the life of me could not tell you how to turn on pap in 90% Of the maps in bo3 and bo4, thankfully they fixed that with cold war.
I personally do have a setup process for soe that is exactly the same, since you can get pap open in round 2 you don't need jug I tent to go footlight first because the ritual has a larger training area which is useful because I bring 6 keepers. I always go for waterfront last as it has a smaller training area so I like to get the shield first just to be safe
10:18 wtf was that L
So many maps will consist of a few spaces you can actually be, and the rest of the map is narrow death traps that you sprint through as you move from location to location. That's really not the case with Shadows. Basically anywhere you go you're going to be in a location that has had so much thought and care put into it's design. And no matter where that downed teammate is there's a way of getting there on time. The 4 districts really should have been released as stand alone challenge maps like they did with Tranzit - the ritual rooms are iconic and it's kind of sad the high round community has never had any reason to make use of them cause each one (okay only a masochist is going to grind boxing gym) are masterfully crafted training spaces. Each of the 3 branches offer enough viable training spaces to support 4 players. The aesthetics and all that are the cherry on top, but to me it's the map design itself that makes Shadows the best map we've ever gotten. No map has had as much time and effort put into it, and it really does show.
I’ve never been good at Shadows, but once I learned a bit more about the map I found myself having a lot more fun. I never looked anything up either, you can figure a lot out just by running about and noodling around
I played zombies since the beginning. I was there day one for each waw bop 1 and 2 map releases. I was so hyped for 3 but when it came out this map killed it for me. It was so confusing the whole theme was thrown upside down and out the window. At the time I hated Cod for advanced exo suit ginger bread looking ass bullshit that I was already done with the multiplayer since ghost. But zombies was the last thing in cod I could hold on to. Black ops 3 was the last cod I ever bought. Coming back to it now it is not as bad as i remember. I honestly dislike lovecracrft style of the map. I missed the ww1/ww2/cold war aesthetic. MOTD was fantastic Orgins was god tier and moon was and is the GOAT.
Mob Of The Dead was horrible and Origins is average.
I don't think there's ever been a map that grew on me more than shadows of evil did. I hated that map on launch. It's one of my personal favorites now though.
I was a day one SoE fan. Despite the fact that I'm a pretty casual player it's still probably my personal favorite
My only issue with Shadows and some of the maps before it is that it's only beatable with 4 people. As a solo player, that aspect sucks.
I think the zombie community sometimes forgets how poor ghosts and aw really were for the rest of cod, it brought a lot of mp players back to bo2 until bo3 came out and a lot of us came back and played zombies. Treyarch knew this, they released the first ever camo dlc’s during a different games life cycle which was huge back then and it was based of zombies! They also had so much pressure to get every aspect right, they didn’t but bo3 is still the last cod game a truly put my life into. Since then it’s only been downhill in my personal opinion
The giant saved bo3.
For the casual of course but the whole game nah
your vids are so underrated bro I've literally been binging all of them whilst playing plants vs zombies
I didn't learn SOE or do the easter egg until just this month thinking it was bad for 9 years
I think once Origins came out thats when they really amped on all the bullshit fetch quests. Atleast in the old maps doing the easter egg shit wasnt required to just enjoy killing zombies and getting high rounds
12:56 hell no mob is a awful map for casuals
Free revive every round🤔
@@IndiBombindi ok now mention the cancer setup
I love your content this shit is my crack
I am wierd
I will pick tranzit over shadow always
I don't even hate any of this map!
It's almoust wierd how hatred didn't died under how iconic is it
No way people hate SoE. Such a fun map and between der E is the only other map I revisit on Bo3
Love your youtube channel, gives me so much joy and nostalgia to see some great throw back zombies content and break down
I really like SoE and I miss the good old days of Zombies community around the BO3 era
Jackie V at a glance can be pegged as a noir detective but personality-wise he’s more of a beat cop
18:20 I think you mean stupid. It’s literally as advanced as put the square in the square hole
Are you going to go all the way to Cold War?
As long as Treyarch keeps making Zombies, I’m planning on doing it (plus other stuff along the way when I find the time!)
Watched the first minute of this yesterday ;) great video as always!
What happened to the first video? I think you took it down while I was halfway through and I didn't notice anything wrong
I watched the whole thing I didn't notice anything either
I would honestly rather have an insanely complex map like shadows on launch than be stuck with town, farm, nuketown, and tranzit again. Shadows is my favorite map tho
L opinion
@@antuanperez426 really???
It's simply the GOAT!
Same level as Die Rise.
HAPPY PIE DAY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🥧 10:14p.m. 3/14/2023
This map would’ve been cooler if it took place in a carnival type setting
Shadows of Evil will always be my favorite map. I feel like there is stuff to do without it being stupid and annoying like origins. Maybe that’s just me tho
The cast is atrocious.
Shadows is still my favorite map of all time next to Origins. ❤
NEW UPLOAD W
Another great video! Keep it up!
Off topic... How do you draw those lines on the map about 4 minutes in? After effects?
Davinci Resolve, Fusion, Paint Node Polyline, keyframes on the Write-On property. Maybe not the best way, but very quick and easy!
I appreciate your perspective and agree on the main complexity elements not being intuitive, but speaking from someone who played zombies since 2008, what really made me NOT like SOE was the cosmic horror. It was so off-putting from someone who fell in love with the game during the Era of strange, but somehow, almost realistic German science experiments gone wrong. Due to this, I am also not really a fan of MOD either. Both of these maps were just too unbelievable to really get into. They didn't scare me the sublet way Pre BO2 zombies did... Origins was borderline as well as again I think Zombies loses a lot from not being linked to N@zi Germany... and still to this day, I don't think they have ever recovered the Mystique that surrounded WaW & BO1...
@Combine I would say you're right, but I have to admit that JZ started us down the path of no return, not JB. Tranzit, Die Rise, and especially buried were way unnecessarily complex and again took us away from the original "almost real" feel of Pre BO2 Zombies.
Shadows of Kino
Ahh shadows of evil. I have a love/hate relationship with this one. I love the noir style and the jazz. The characters are also great. The apothican servant kicks ass too and I was able to figure out how to get it without looking up a guide. However, I can’t lie, I don’t like the introduction of the apothicans, the shadow man is writing at it’s worst, and I just don’t like it when maps cater so much to those who love opening TH-cam guides. But once you do bite the bullet and learn how to set up, it becomes second nature and it’s actually a bit engaging. Shadows I love now more than I did when it came out, but I don’t find myself coming back to this one often
I'd be lying if I agreed with your synapses of Mob and Origins. Those maps are fun one-offs, and not something I could sink time into anymore. Shadows is pretty similar to me. I love it far more than the flawed BO2 iterations of this same design... But complexity wasn't handled correctly in Zombies in my opinion. Which is why we have massive flops like; BO4, IW, WW2 and even parts of BO3. That had dire consequences, creating things like CW Outbreak and Vanguard. Two things which the franchise deserves to die over.
Zombie slaying is at its most fun, when it is simple, straight to the point, and you have many options to go about it. I far prefer the Victis BO2 maps for this reason. All three can be played in a number of entirely unique ways, and there are no systems that outright force you to play a certain way. Mob, Origins, Shadows all have strict requirements that must be met in order to open things up, get perks, pack and so on. It's unnecessary, and DE shows this. In fact, several maps in and around this time demonstrate how that this direction was not the right way as a whole. One-offs sure, but not whole maps in its entirety.
I find my friends and I are more willing to go back and play; WaW, BO1 and BO2 on Plutonium, before we'd ever touch the newer modes and maps though we've played them all (except the trash-heap that is Vanguard.) We even discovered BO1 Zombies VR which is by far the coolest way to play, and it doesn't need this level of complication to be fun and engaging. BO3 is something I'd return to if it weren't for the huge (unmentioned) elephant in the room that destroys the game as a whole, which is: the hackers that can literally get into your PC while you play. Listen, I'm not trying to bash WhiteCliff here, but this absolutely should've been mentioned. Sugar-coating these reviews with your rose-tinted nostalgia glasses on, and potentially convincing people to purchase what is on all accounts a security risk without mentioning the slew of problems it has, is wholly disingenuous.
ain’t no way u could get a free gobble gum whaaaat