Given that we've reached the end of Black Ops 2, it's no wonder that Treyarch have done the honourable thing and send the series out with a bang. Origins is the seventeenth map (including Dead Ops Arcade, which I suppose I must) contained within Zombies, that has, let us be honest, given Treyarch any hope of competing with the 'Modern Warfare' side of things, and given that we've reached the same stage where we really ought to be considering, well, what's next.
World at War was our introduction to the series, moving from four unnamed soldiers fighting anonymous enemies in a one-dimensional environment (it was amazing, let us not forget that), to the introduction of perks, then characters and wonder weapons, then teleportation and upgrades, and gradually, a story. Part of the fun, that I've partaken in since the very beginning, is figuring out how the story pieces together. After the fourth map pack for WaW, I took great pride in being the only able to explain the backstory of Nazi Zombies to my fellow players. I loved the mysteriousness, the unknowable paths behind the barriers, the little easter eggs that you could only access by noclipping out of the map, I loved the slow realisation that things did actually make sense, if barely.
Then we had Black Ops! We moved to the theatre, and for once, the storyline was moving forwards, if only slightly. And then Ascension, one of my favourite maps to date, linked both Five to the main storyline, and advanced the story arc of the four main characters. The map packs then continued to create increasingly story-driven experiences, culminating in a thoroughly lengthy easter egg set on the moon, resulting in the destruction of the earth, the revealing and changing of the Demonic Announcer, and the availability of Samantha Maxis as a playable character.
Onto Black Ops, where the story became even more convoluted and confusing than ever, and...I loved that. It was a return to the old days, where we had vague pieces of information and had to make what sense of them we could. Difference is, we now have an absolute overload of information and we had to fill in the tiniest details. In fact, sometimes, the story was perfectly clear. Now we've reached the end, and well, it's all very ambiguous. Did the final, ultimate easter egg ending in buried really signal the end of Nazi Zombies? Or was it a prelude to the next instalment. Myself, I didn't believe that Buried was the end. It just didn't even feel like an ending! Then, we have Origins, which leaves us with numerous questions, completely unanswered.
e.g. How does Maxis find a new body? (Which he has, at some point in the future, as he is shot by either Schuster or Groph). Is Agartha eternal? (essentially, is it a realm where time is meaningless? This question must be asked, as it is the only answer to the question of how Samantha attempts to get her future father to free her, before she becomes trapped in the MPD.) What is the link between the test tubes of blood (which contain the serial numbers of Salvatore De Luca and Finn O'Leary) and Richtofen/what is the link between Mob of the Dead and Origins, especially as Mob of the Dead, chronologically speaking, occurs after Origins.
And yes, that infamous ending. The Easter Egg ending to 'Lost Little Girl' has been hailed as Treyarch's final shit on the faces of the Nazi Zombies community. However, before you start nodding, and agreeing with that statement, let me tell you how wrong you are. It's a beginning. Not an ending. It's the how, and why, answer, that I have been looking forward to for a long time, not least because of how ambiguous it is. I love figuring it out.
And so that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we can expect more. Unexplainable occurrences, impossible hints and questions without a clue to their name. And that last line, foreboding, chilling - 'don't worry. My father has a plan.'
Look forward to more. I bloody well hope.
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