Call of Duty: Black Ops II at Fourteen: The Franchise’s Strangest Swing

Fourteen years after its 2012 debut, Call of Duty: Black Ops II remains the franchise’s strangest swing. Treyarch developed it. Activision and Square Enix published it. It launched on Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 13, 2012, and was the first Call of Duty game built for the Wii U. Iron Galaxy Studios later ported it to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on July 9, 2026. A PlayStation Vita companion, Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified, arrived from nStigate Games on November 13, 2012.

Trailer, via Call of Duty.

Menendez, Mason, and Two Cold Wars

The campaign runs non-linear, with multiple endings. Alex Mason and Frank Woods pursue the Nicaraguan arms dealer and terrorist Raul Menendez through the 1980s. Menendez kidnaps David “Section” Mason, and in 2025 the younger Mason hunts him again as Menendez sparks a Second Cold War.

Missions range across Angola, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Cayman Islands, Panama, Yemen, the United States and Haiti. The game supports single player, multiplayer, co-operative and split-screen modes, all in first person.

Its published score is 7.0/10.

Nuketown, the Aether, and the Cornfield

In Cold War-era Nevada, CDC operatives investigating the Nuketown nuclear test site are attacked by zombies. Dr. Edward Richtofen, heard through a television, seizes the undead by entering the Aether. Dr. Ludvig Maxis, with his daughter Samantha and Richtofen’s former allies Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski and Takeo Masakai, fires three missiles loaded with Element 115 — the element that reanimates dead cells — at Earth. One destroys Nuketown and everyone in it.

Four survivors — Samuel J. Stuhlinger, Abigail “Misty” Briarton, Marlton Johnson and Russman — ride a bus driven by a robotic driver through the wasteland. Maxis, now a digital A.I., asks them to power a tower in a cornfield using an electricity-based zombie. Richtofen, speaking through Samuel, wants the same tower for himself.

After the choice, the four are teleported to a crumbling Shanghai skyline, where Richtofen threatens to expose Samuel’s past in a cannibalistic cult called The Flesh. He revives them every time they fall until they obey. Maxis, free of electric devices, contacts them again. Televisions reveal the Flesh and a new airborne Element 115 plague.

The Rift, 1918, and Agartha

The group crosses continents to a hole in the ground in Africa called “the Rift,” gaining a mute giant ally in an underground western town. At the final tower, Maxis promises to heal the Earth and Richtofen promises to save them from Maxis.

Aid Richtofen and he takes the Aether, kills Maxis and condemns Samantha, then enters Samuel’s body and cannot leave. Aid Maxis and he traps Richtofen in a zombie’s body and starts destroying Earth to reach Agartha — which he ultimately fails to enter. Samantha is there, and reaches her father in 1918 France, where Group 935 built mechanical robots, armor suits and elemental staffs to win Germany the war. Richtofen is the mastermind; Maxis is lobotomized; Richtofen puts his brain in a flying drone. The group frees Samantha. The closing scene shows Samantha and Eddie retreating to the basement with Maxis.

Key Facts

• Published score: 7.0 of 10
• Release: November 13, 2012 (Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
• Wii U: November 18, 2012 (North America), November 30, 2012 (PAL)
• PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 ports: July 9, 2026 (Iron Galaxy Studios)
• Developer: Treyarch; publishers: Activision, Square Enix

Schedule

The Zombies mode is ambitious past the point of clarity — branching towers, two endings, a time-skipping epilogue. The 1918 material is the most striking stretch.

The rest is mythology piled on mythology, and the Agartha ambiguity is a dodge, not a design. The scale of the swing still earns respect.

Black Ops 2 · Call of Duty · Treyarch · video games · zombies