When you’re back-porting a game meant for current-gen consoles on to last-gen consoles, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to make compromises. Usually, this involves downgrading the graphics, simplifying the A.I., or perhaps eliminating DLC options. In the case of this November’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III however, it will mean that one of the cornerstones of the game will be entirely missing in the last-gen versions!
Activision has just confirmed that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 builds of Call of Duty: Black Ops III will not feature a story campaign, merely including the online multiplayer suite, and the Zombies Mode. This virtually makes these last-gen ports multiplayer-only games, though if you so choose, you can play Zombies solo, for what that’s worth.
Activision states that the removal of the story campaign from Call of Duty: Black Ops III on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is due to the inability to realize the co-op-oriented nature of the campaign on last-gen hardware, though the campaign is being developed as promised for the marquee PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions. This is the second major compromise for the last-gen versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which are being developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology, rather than main developer, Treyarch, who are exclusively handling the current-gen versions. The first was the denial of an online multiplayer beta on the last-gen consoles, which the PlayStation 4 got priority access to as a key incentive earlier in the Summer, before the beta expanded to Xbox One and PC the following week.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III takes place in the year 2065, 40 years after the conclusion of 2012’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II. After air assaults are rendered useless by an international defense grid, soldiers are restricted to ground operations, but when an elite black ops force goes missing behind enemy lines, an enhanced team of specialists must venture into hostile territory to figure out what went wrong. The game also brings unique specialist characters to multiplayer for the first time, and will naturally mark a return for the fan-favourite Zombies survival mode that debuted in 2008’s Call of Duty: World at War.
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