Treyarch's Season 4 Reloaded update for Black Ops Cold War was long-awaited and arguably over-hyped by the time it came out. We had been waiting a long time for Mauer Der Toten, the third Round-Based Zombies map, to drop.
Now that the Mauer Der Toten map has come out, we can't help but feel like it's a bit forgettable. Just like Die Maschine, we can't see ourselves headed back to Berlin anytime soon. Here are a few reasons as to why...
It Boils Down To One Central Strip
There's always a "Main Area" in any Zombies map and Mauer Der Toten's is undeniably the central strip. Mauer Der Toten, for better or worse, can be a tight map. The hallways in the Hotel offer little room to wiggle around oncoming Zombies and the underground system can be a cluster "mess" at the best of times.
If you're going to run trains, then you're risking more than it's worth by running around anywhere that isn't the central strip between West Berlin Streets, East Berlin Streets, and through Checkpoint Charlie. Even then, this central area is far from ideal.
Black Ops Cold War's iteration of Zombies is somewhat easier than the versions we've seen recently, in WWII and Black Ops 4, but that doesn't make it better. You can reach higher rounds than you might be able to in other Zombies experiences but it doesn't really feel as enjoyable when the only viable solution is to run around the same small area of the map.
Mauer Der Toten, in a way, reminds us of Voyage of Despair. It's a couple of larger open areas joined by a series of painfully tight walkways. When you're playing with more than one person, you just can't really justify running a larger loop in fears of backing onto the end of another person's train of Zombies. Mauer Der Toten is a painful reminder of how far we've come from the original Zombies experience in World At War and the spawning mechanics of Black Ops Cold War's Zombies makes running loops in tighter areas anything but a viable means of survival.
There's Only One New Elite Enemy
Jumping into your first game of Zombies on a new map is exciting, Mauer Der Toten was no exception. We saw images of The Disciple in the build-up to launch and it only made everything more interesting. Who were these mysterious floating figures? Why did they glow quite that much?
You quickly learn the answers to these questions and then... That's it. Black Ops Cold War's Elite Enemies are all, for lack of a better description, Bullet Sponges. Mauer Der Toten only adds The Disciple to the mix and relies on Outbreak's Krasny Soldat and Firebase Z's Manglers to keep everything else fresh.
The Krasny Soldat and Mangler are painfully similar in how you tackle them and The Disciple offers some sort of strategy, albeit a very loose one. The further you continue into a game of Zombies on the new Mauer Der Toten map, the more they spawn. It becomes less about the strategy of handling a special enemy and more about shooting into the mob until everything is dead.
The introduction of The Disciples offered a chance at making Mauer Der Toten a bit more of a strategic Zombies experience, but Treyarch threw that out of the window after you fight your first one. By Round 30, you can face up to ten of them in a single round and they're nothing more than another enemy to unload your clip into. It gets boring after a while and you have to wonder if Zombies has lost the spark it once had.
Klaus Is Not The Most Memorable Character
In addition to all this, Klaus isn't really as memorable as he should be. When the development team were discussing Klaus in the build-up to the release of the new map - Mauer Der Toten - he was described as one of "the most popular things [Treyarch] has ever done because Klaus is f-ing hilarious in a very very dry way". You can see that clip below:
This leaves us with one question though... Is Klaus really that funny? Sure, it's amusing that he complains all the time but he's hardly making you laugh out loud every time he speaks. As an AI Companion in a Zombies experience, he is far from the most memorable.
Instantly, you think of The Hoff from Zombies in Spaceland or Elvira in Attack of the Radioactive thing. If you widen this thought to Zombies characters in general, it's hard to count the characters that are better than Klaus. Hell, even the Bus Driver from Tranzit - T.E.D.D. - is funnier than Klaus. We don't mind Klaus, but suggesting that he is one of the most popular things Treyarch has ever done with Zombies is ludicrous and he does little to make Mauer Der Toten any more memorable as a map than it is.
Explore new topics and discover content that's right for you!
Call of Duty