This is it. The last batch of maps are now out for Call Of Duty Black Ops 3 and with that this cynical grumpy man takes a look at these new maps. The DLC contains four multiplayer maps named Citadel, Micro, Outlaw and Rupture plus one zombie map named Revelations. Watch me as I go through maps that have nothing to do with the actual game and slowly start to lose my sanity.
Citadel:
The first map I checked out was Citadel. This map’s setting is a medieval fantasy castle. The map’s layout is great, the water section under the bridge is great and any water sections in the game are fun to me. At one side you have a dead forest complete with the traditional skull trees. In the forest is a siege tower that’s sure to help players snipe, set traps or escape enemies in pursuit. In front of the tower is the giant castle which almost pierces the heavens with its hydra statues crawling on top of it. It looks pretty cool. Looking at the tower from the outside from any angle gives a feeling of awe. It looks cool but my main problem with it is that it does not fit the setting of the game. Now for just about everyone playing this game that wouldn’t be a problem but for those who read my previous DLC impression will know the series suffers from an identity crisis and with this DLC, it’s in full force. This map looks like the kind of map you would have seen in something like the original Quake or Unreal Tournament where the theme isn’t set in stone and in Unreal’s case the game never took itself too serious. When you have a game that has a future/Deus Ex setting throwing in a medieval map seems to stand out like a sore thumb. The map’s layout is good and its visual aesthetics look amazing but it just doesn’t fit the game’s visual theme. I guess only a handful of people will have a problem with that. The rest will certainly enjoy the map.
While it looks cool I can’t help but be bothered by the thematic inconsistency with the rest of the game.
Mirco:
Oh man. No again if this was a mod for Counter Strike or something it would have been a nice and goofy map. But honestly selling this map as something professional video-game developers who work on a multi-million dollar franchise series made is ridiculous. It’s a picnic table. You are all tiny little soldier men running around on a picnic table. It’s maps like these that blatantly show this franchise is marketing to the pre-teen and teenage boys rather than its actual 18+ market. Honestly, it’s kind of gross. I like the flies and bugs you can shoot on the map considering the theme but the theme itself comes over as childish and immature. Aside from the dumb visual theme, the map has quite a few problems. It’s kind of hard to make out a lot of stuff because of the messy design of the map. It’s the visual overload that keeps you from smoking in the map. And once you get past the messy cluttered and color overload design of the map you will find a boring map with not much interesting going on. Another problem I had is that the field of depth of the background makes it hard to discern the end of the map when you first start playing. Mirco is an awful map that shows off the rather nefarious marketing demographic behind the game.
A neat idea for a fun little mod. Not so much when it’s an officially made map.
Outlaw:
Now I have been talking trash about the previous maps because of its visual disconnection with the rest of the game but this time, I’m going to allow it. Outlaw is a remade map from Call Of Duty Black Ops 2 but now with a western motif. While it doesn’t necessarily fit the setting of the game it would technically be possible to come across a place like this. It reminds me De_Westwood from Counter Strike where I played a lot of gungame on. It’s a nice map. The theme is great and the layout is solid. Not much else to say about this one. Cool map.
While the sunset is a bit too bright you can’t deny that the atmosphere of this map is amazingly done.
Rupture:
The last map for multiplayer before we move on to zombies. This map is nothing to call home about. It’s based on the Call Of Duty World At War map Outskirts which I kind of remember and was a good map for WaW. But its layout isn’t that memorable and therefore nostalgia doesn’t really work on this map. It’s one of the bigger maps and the tanks from WaW are now replaced with some kind of mechs that look and feel eerily familiar to the Mantis from Halo. The tanks in WaW were kind of fun but these mechs are just boring. They constantly get in the way and they’re just not exciting to use. The map itself seems pretty good from what I played. There is a lot to digest in this map but it’s particularly badly designed. The mechs are pretty bad but the map seems fun from what I played.
The mechs on this map are just a drag.
Revelations:
This is the last chapter in the origins cast arc which no one gave two hoo-hahs about. How something as simple as a horde mode got so out of hand is beyond me. Shootin’ Nazi Zombies and tryin’ to survive was how it used to be. Now it’s all about aliens and cryptic puzzles and time-travel and cameo appearances of cool celebs who the main Call Of Duty crowd never heard of. I was going to make a joke here about how the mainstream Call Of Duty fan would recognize the guy from some dumb show but I can’t even find one he did.
Well, whatever I think of the zombies mode in general doesn’t really matter all too much for this map. So this map starts off with a strong what the hell is going on when you see you are in space and there is a giant space squid roaring at you. While I had my complaints about all the cryptic bs in previous maps this one seems to divide it up nicely. For those interested in the wacky and far-out alien and cryptic stuff can just go straight ahead and summons alien monsters and do all that stuff. But for those who prefer the vanilla horde stuff they can just buy guns and pathways to other sections of the map without having to solve fifty Professor Layton puzzles. I have to say I enjoyed my time on this map because it allowed me to just try and survive for as long as I could without worrying about all that stupid stuff. This is the biggest zombie map they have ever done and you see why. Every section of the map is a part of a previous map from previous Call Of Duties.. That doesn’t only mean all the Black Ops trilogy maps but also the original World At War maps. Now that’s a lot of maps. You can play any way you want and this map is actually really entertaining for both people.
A pretty well-designed map all things considering.
And that’s that. All of Black Ops 3’s DLC is done. In general, there are some neat maps but most of them feel like they are blatantly targeting teens and in the process butcher whatever little artistic vision the game or even series even was. A lot of maps pander to teens with childish ideas and concepts and zombies has regressed from a deep and engaging horde mode to a complex, cryptic and narratively confusing mess. And for the high price of 15$ or € it’s just not worth it. None of the DLC is actually worth it. Activision should take a look at how Halo 3 did its DLC or even how EA did it with Battlefield 3. These games did it way better and most importantly, all maps fit the theme and setting of the game without trying to “sell out” to little kids.
If I had to pick the maps I really liked and thought where well-designed it would be:
Revelations, Outlaw, Skyjacked, Gauntlet and Rift.
If you are interested in the other DLC pack reviews you can see them here:
