Fans are currently invested in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies storyline, but will the events of the current game continue in COD 2025?
It’s about that time of year when Call of Duty fans start to hope for a glimpse of what’s next in store for them.
For the first time in years, it seems like Black Ops 6 is doing a great job of keeping its players invested, with many fans looking forward to upcoming content such as the new Shattered Veil Zombies map.
But the wheel of time stops for no game, and a new Call of Duty title is inevitable. Early leaks report that Treyarch will be in the driver’s seat once again for COD 2025, so is it possible that this year’s release could continue the Zombies storyline?
Call of Duty 2025 Zombies
It’s worth noting that Activision is yet to reveal any details about Call of Duty 2025, including confirming the longstanding rumor that it’s being developed by Treyarch.
Leaks also suggest that COD 2025 is set to be a sequel to Black Ops 2, a game that was actually set in 2025.
With that in mind, we can expect a 30+ year gap from the events of Black Ops 6 Zombies, making it difficult to set up a direct sequel.
However, other leaks have had a lot of say about the plans for Zombies in this year’s title:
The Original Crew Returns
Back in October 2024, Insider Gaming claimed that the original Zombies Crew could be returning in COD 2025. The site claimed that this news came from several sources who were invited to early playtests of the upcoming title.
Longtime Zombies fans will remember that we last saw Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, Takeo Masaki, and Edward Richtofen all together in Black Ops 3’s Revelations map. There, the beloved characters entered an endless cycle beginning in Origins and ending in the aforementioned Revelations.
Since 2016, only Richtofen has made a comeback, resurfacing at the end of Cold War Zombies and setting up the events of the Black Ops 6 Zombies storyline.
Could the other original Zombies Crew members somehow return and still be a part of the Black Ops 6 story? Well, it’s not as simple as that.
The reason why ‘Eddie’ Richtofen was able to return was because he was reborn in a child’s body at the end of Origins. Then, at the conclusion of Black Ops 4 Zombies, Eddie and Samantha Maxis are the only two beings to head into the new universe, while the rest of the multiverse is destroyed.
It’s confusing but, in theory, the only way we’d be able to play as the original Crew would be somewhere in their repeating cycle – unless Treyarch wants to write the characters into the storyline another way.
Map Settings
Another interesting leak from Insider Gaming, this time from March 2025, reported that there will be six round-based maps coming to Call of Duty 2025.
Among these are a number of adventurous settings, such as a map set in post-WW2 New York following a Nazi nuclear bomb attack, a Japanese temple set at the base of an active volcano, or a space station inside the Dark Aether.
If this leak proves correct, perhaps Treyarch is looking to move away from the more ‘grounded’ story seen in Black Ops 6 Zombies, which (as of Season 3) features two maps set in a West Virginian town.
The leak also reports that Grief and Outbreak modes are set to return in this year’s release, but we remember hearing something similar about last year’s title.
It’s worth mentioning that the Black Ops 6 storyline technically already continued with the events of Modern Warfare 3 Zombies (AKA MWZ). There, we saw the biological daughter of Samantha Maxis looking into the events of Liberty Falls.
Therefore, we think it’s likely that Treyarch will one day continue the current storyline, even if it moves away from it in this year’s release. After all, we finally just got more Chaos storyline content after 7 years of waiting!