The fourth and final DLC for Call of Duty Black Ops 2, the Apocalypse pack, is now available to download. And it might just be the best map pack available for the Treyarch game.
It includes the Origins zombie setting, which I’m not going to cover in detail. I still have yet to really get into zombie mode, and can’t help wondering if Treyarch should be spinning it into a separate game and spending extra time for more multiplayer content, especially considering the move to selling season passes at launch.
For reference, Origins feaures a Dieselpunk World War 1 era France, playing as the original heroes from the very first zombies map, Tank, Nikolai, Takeo and Rictofen. Apparently hordes of zombies have overrun the trenches, and the players will reunite with an unlikely band of soldiers to defeat the greatest evil the world has ever seen.
Apocalypse Multiplayer Maps:
The multiplayer maps in Apocalypse are extremely good for a simple reason. Although they still feature narrow channels and chokepoints, there’s less emphasis on them than in every other Black Ops 2 map. Having recently revisited Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with some friends, I was struck by how big the maps felt due to the variety of routes, and various sightlines, routes and hiding places they offered.
The same is true of three of the Apocalypse maps. At the same time, it has to be noted than two of the ‘new’ maps are remakes, with one being a direct update in the same fashion as Nuketown 2025, Studio (Firing Range from Black Ops) and Uplink (Summit from Black Ops).
Pod:
New map based in a failed utopian community from the 1970s. It features pods nestled into an abandoned cliff side in Taiwan, with various routes through the building interiors as well as the main pathways through the map, which allows for some flanking opportunities, as well as camping.
Pod
Frost:
Another new map, set in an unnamed European city. The urban warfare features tight buildings around a frozen canal which can be crossed on foot – although stray too far and you’ll sink. Again, the buildings are largely open to allow some flanking and surprise attacks, rather than constantly going into a head-on gun fight.
Frost
Dig:
The first of the remakes at least goes back to the archives to adapt the ‘Courtyard’ map from Call of Duty: World at War. The setting of two archeological dig sites in Afganistan involves a fairly open layout with a couple of chokepoints, but the raised platforms and broken walls all around mean that there’s a decent amount of routes and cover to use.
Dig
Takeoff:
The second updated map is this remote launch site in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Which is Stadium from Call of Duty Black Ops, given the same graphical makeover which resulted in Studio and Uplink. It’s still a good map, and it does look nice, but Black Ops isn’t exactly a vintage game yet.
Takeoff
Is Apocalypse worth it?
Assuming you don’t have the Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Season Pass, the Apocalypse DLC will cost £10.20, with the PC and PS3 versions arriving in around a month. It’s also a 1.98GB download, so you may need to allow some time if you’re on a slower connection.
Putting Origins to one side, we’ve got 2 good news maps, 1 good remake which you won’t be as familiar with, and one direct clone from Black Ops. Given that Black Ops isn’t yet 3 years old, it does feel like the remakes have come too soon.
In addition, Black Ops 2 has allowed a slightly quicker route to reaching Prestige Master, and has featured multiple Double Xp and Double Weapons XP weekends (There’s another one coming to celebrate the final map pack), so there’s probably little to be completed in the way of unlocks and rewards – in context, Black Ops 2 maximum level was reached for me in about half the time it took for Black Ops.
So it really depends how much you’re playing Black Ops 2 right now. If you’re still putting the hours in and fancy some maps which actually feel a bit different, and also help players on a worse internet connection, then it’s worthwhile. But it’s not enough to reinvigorate Black Ops for long unless you’re a zombie fan, as you’ll have covered all the new content in an hour or two depending on game types.
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