A Look Back At Black Ops III’s Strangest Level
▻https://kotaku.com/a-look-back-at-black-ops-iiis-strangest-level-1826206648
It is tempting to look at this moment as a reflection on the series itself. Each new Call of Duty game has added new features and modes whose popularity eclipse the story campaigns. The self-serious stories of yesteryear were replaced with mindless shoot ‘em up game types full of pulp nonsense. Even as the player leaves World War II in the dirt and is hounded by the undead, they’re able to fight back. Even if Black Ops III feels hounded by the weight of its past, it would rather pretend it’s possible to shoot the past down than meaningfully reconcile with it. When the time comes to end the level, there isn’t a prompt to hold Hall’s hand or engage in any human, intimate act. Instead, you have to shoot her. If you want, there’s a bonus achievement for using a grenade to kill her called “Out With A Bang.” We can’t do anything but destroy everything we encounter; we are further rewarded for blowing everything up.
Demon Within’s use of series iconography is fragmented, the intentions muddied by gameplay systems that invite no meaningful or introspective means of interaction. It rips and tears whatever vestiges it can from the series’ past to toss them into the player’s face. But instead of an indictment that acknowledges the series abandoned its roots, Black Ops III conjures a fun house of explosions that turns those things into a mockery. Just as Sarah Hall looks back on the Battle of Bastogne, convinced she could never be as brave as those who fought there, Black Ops III reflects on the rest of the series with a similar fear. It worries that I can’t be as good as what came before and ultimately, that fear is proven right.