The Call of Duty franchise is one of the most iconic first-person shooter series on the market. The games offer lengthy story campaigns for military buffs, and hectic multiplayer shootouts for competitive players. But one of the strangest traditions in the Call of Duty games is the Zombies mode. Starting with Call of Duty: World At War, each game in the series developed by Treyarch has featured a mode which lets players blast away at undead hordes. One such Zombies mode can be found in 2012’s Black Ops II. There you can find the classic Nuketown Zombies map. This add-on takes one of the most beloved maps in Call of Duty’s rich history and infests it with the undead.
Nuketown is an iconic map in its own right. Filling it with ravenous zombies has certainly endeared this DLC to many Call of Duty fans over the years. That said, it was launched in 2013, so it’s had about a decade to begin showing its age. Like a lot of games, including more recent titles, Nuketown Zombies has accumulated its fair share of bugs and glitches. If you’re looking to take on the hordes yourself and want to conquer the undead by any means necessary, here are a few tricks. You can use these to get a less-than-legitimate edge over Nuketown Zombies.
Nuketown Zombies Overview
The classic Nuketown map is a model city built to test nuclear weaponry. This gives players a whole suburban town to battle in, complete with the tense military edge Call of Duty is known for. Nuketown Zombies technically takes place after a traditional multiplayer match on Nuketown. The detonation has decimated the iconic map, and paved the way for undead monsters to crawl in. The map also occurs simultaneously with the events of Moon, the finale of the Zombies campaign in the previous Black Ops game. While that map is largely situated on the moon itself, references to the battle taking place there can be seen and heard during the action in Nuketown.
There are also several easter eggs to keep an eye out for while you’re exploring the map. You can hear Richtofen’s voice coming from a television in one of the houses. This serves to demonstrate the fact that your exploits are taking place at the same time as his scheme. Marlton Johnson, a playable character on other Zombies maps in Black Ops II, has a cameo appearance in Nuketown Zombies. You can find him hiding in a bunker.
Nuketown Zombies Pile Up Glitch
One of the most commonly exploited glitches in Nuketown Zombies requires you to climb the map. There are several places in Nuketown where the geometry of the buildings and structures gets a bit wonky. By carefully climbing and timing your jumps well, you can pretty easily climb somewhere the zombies will be unable to reach. Once you’re secure in your spot above the map, just wait for the zombies to come after you. Eventually you’ll have a nice hefty pile of zombies at your feet which you can gun down at your leisure for some quick and easy kills.
One of the best places to perform this glitch is in the house next to the Nuketown sign out front. Do not purchase the ability to open the back door of this house. Instead, you can, with some careful positioning, stand on top of the door frame in the backyard. Most zombies will be totally incapable of reaching you up here. Over time, a nice pile of the undead will form at the base of the door, and you can pick them off at your leisure.
Treyarch does have a history of patching out these exploits. It’s worth checking with the community to identify the best spots that are still available for use. Luckily, with new Call of Duty titles releasing on such a regular schedule, it’s easy for titles like Nuketown Zombies to slip between the cracks. Enterprising gamers should still be able to find plenty of chances to climb above the map and make mischief.
The Future of Call of Duty
2013’s Nuketown Zombies map will forever be a nostalgic delight for many fans, glitches or no glitches. But the Call of Duty franchise won’t be slowing down anytime soon. On November 10th, Activision will be publishing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. This game serves as a sequel to last year’s Modern Warfare II, and it serves as the third entry in the Modern Warfare reboot that began in 2019. While Modern Warfare III is being developed by Sledgehammer Games instead of Treyarch, the title will feature its own zombies mode, based in Urzikstan. If you want to practice gunning down zombies on familiar turf before the new game launches, hopefully this cheat guide has helped prepare you.