Call of Duty: Black Ops III Has Absolutely Lost the Plot

Zombies has always been like this. Not sure where you've been

"We thought that Call of Duty: Zombies was just a bonus co-op mode, since when has it had an absolutely ass-crazy storyline as well?"

lol
Treyarch started introducing a story to Zombies back in World at War with the map packs, this game is leaning heavily into the story, as they've got 8 years worth of loose ends to tie up in a short amount of time.
The story is long,deep and confusing, but very well made.
Everything connects in some way, and all maps are canon, starting with World at War (2008)

also worth to note that Treyarch's zombie story is only in their games.
Sledgehammer and Infinity Wards have nothing to do with the Zombies in Black ops, they are their own thing, with their own story

@get2sammyb to boil down a 8 year story, ehh
you notice one the soldiers is holding a round device, this device is used to collect souls
through the past map packs, they needed to collect souls from their past selves (yes, i know, confusing) these souls were sent to this house to keep them safe
however, they didn't always have this device, it was in Shadows of Evil (the on disc-map) and that crew on that map used the device to capture that beard/hat man. The soldiers with it now, never knew he was in the device, and he called out the crazy scientist man to let him free

now everything is going wild
...yeeep

@get2sammyb You should watch Dr. Who, that's a fairly typical episode.

There was a story?! ( I'm honestly shocked! )

Let me sum it up
1. interdimensional creatures called keepers essentially keep the universe in order

2. some keepers were turned into bad alien things called apothicons

3. group 935 finds ancient material which is 115 (fabric of universe)

4. group 935 messes up, creates teleporter, dude teleports daughter to group 935's lab on the moon, girl steps into ancient machine on moon, rules all zombies

5. zombies are outcome of element 115 (fabric of universe-ish thing)

6. 4 heroes try to save the world from zombies

7. 1 of those heroes does experiments on other 3, brainwashing them

8. that 1 dude, german guy, richtofen, messes up and gets the entire world nuked by angering the girl in the machine ruling zombies.

9. german dude is cursed to (what is essentially hell), gets revenge on the girl's father

10. 4 other dudes in another universe, basically immortal to zombie infections, replicas of the other 4 dudes in other universe, shows up to save themselves and create a perfect, safe universe, lead by the other universe version of the girls father, and now he's good, helps the new 4 people

11. they get summoning key, the orb that the old man in the trailer (father of girl, aka maxis), have to kill off OTHER universe versions of themselves to preserve and keep their souls safe in that house you see in the start of the trailer (souls turn into kids)

12. maxis is tricked into touching orb by apothicon overlord, apothicon overlord steals his body, turns into that weird bearded floaty dude and he destroys the 'perfect universe' that the new 4 people created.

and t hats all it folks, i can go much deeper but... y'know

I dont usually comment but I just have to because you seem to have not been caught up with the zombies storyline. Ill give a basic rundown of the storyline since Origins to where it makes sense in the Prologue of Revelations.

Origins : Basically the start of Blundells Storyline. You basically release Samantha and Dr Maxis Brain into argartha. In the end cutscene you see sam and Eddy(Edward Riftofen) in the house. You hear a siren and you hear maxis calling the kids with sam telling eddy that her dad has a plan.

Shadows Of Evil : We get introduced to the Shadow Man who is the head of evil. We trap him in the Summoning Key which is introduced in the map. Riftofen comes through a portal and steals it from the gate keeper. He saids he has a plan with what he is gonna do with the summoning key. The summoning key is the essentially the strongest most valuable artifact in the zombie storyline.

Der Eisendrache : Basically Dempsey map where we capture his soul inside the summoning key. He kills his 1.0 version. We also blow up the moon.

Zetsubou No Shima : Basically Takeo Map where we capture his soul inside the summoning key. He kills his 1.0 version with his katana.

Gorod Krovi : This is Nikolai map where we capture his 1.0 version inside the summoning key. We also get introduced to Dr Monty(The narrator in the prologue).

The Prologue : Basically everything was going good until Shadow Man tricked Maxis into picking up the summoning key when the shadow man essentially swaped places with maxis and now is back to his apothican form and is all powerful. Revelations has many theories on how its going to go down and this was just a very bare basic rundown of the storyline. ;D

@Thegentleman I hope your being sarcastic?

and btw, this was all mostly planned from the beginning, there were references to things we find out later in the franchise, and at that time we had no clue what they were, tbh it's good planning and zombies doesnt make up for what bo3 calls multiplayer, but it is extremely fun and well thought out, dont hop on the band wagon and call out the zombies gamemode because it's cod.

Obviously this is connected to Metal Gear survive...

...Right?

Zombie mode story in cod bo 3 is better and more interesting than the main story, I don't know about zombie multiplayer story though.

@ZeBraTurle honest

@thegentleman there's been a story for 8 years over 3 black ops games and world of war.

@get2sammyb You just explained kojima's next game pretty much.

@ZeBraTurle oh i didn't really know.... (i played one on gamecube and some on ps3 but really don't remember it that well and yes I have been playing single campaign )