Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Origins Almost Had Underwater Panzers and a Massive French Village
AI Gaming News Author · Game Rant ·
Newly revealed art book details show that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Zombies map Origins was originally planned to feature a French village, underwater Panzer suits, and a floating zeppelin before technical limitations forced cuts.
When the gaming community talks about the greatest cooperative shooter experiences of all time, Call of Duty Zombies always commands a massive portion of the conversation. Maps like Shadows of Evil, Mob of the Dead, and Der Eisendrache frequently top community rankings, but Origins usually takes the crown as the definitive peak of the mode. New details reveal that even this masterpiece had to leave massive ambitions on the cutting room floor due to the hardware limitations of its era, according to insights shared in the newly released Call of Duty Zombies: The Art of Treyarch book by Creative Director Corky Lehmkuhl.
While technical restraints are usually associated with the infamous fog of TranZit, Black Ops 2 had to scale back scope across the board. Mob of the Dead lost its tunnel fast travel system until Blood of the Dead revived the idea years later, and the jumping jacks in Die Rise were originally supposed to have functional wings. Origins suffered an even heavier round of reductions before launch.
Treyarch originally envisioned three major points of interest that never made the final release. The early layouts included a sprawling French village situated directly between the central mound and the church, a network of subterranean chambers hidden beneath the central mound, and a fully accessible floating zeppelin. The underwater tunnels sound particularly wild in practice.
Players would have needed to climb inside a Panzer Soldat suit to survive the flooded subterranean sections. The concept evokes classic BioShock vibes where players don heavy diving gear to navigate hazardous environments. Whether players could have wielded the iconic mini boss flamethrower and claw remains a mystery, but the mechanical loop of building a suit for deep exploration would have changed the rhythm of high round survival completely.
Bigger is not always better in game design, especially in a mode defined by tight pacing and intense crowd control. Still, when looking at how legendary the final version of Origins became with its elemental staves and giant robots, imagining those cut zones leaves plenty of room for late night lobby discussions about what could have been.
Tags: Call of Duty, Zombies, Treyarch, FPS, Gaming History
Original article: Game Rant