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Black Ops 3 sells itself as one game and behaves like two. On one side there is a competitive shooter with 55 ranks, twelve maps and a loadout screen. On the other there is Zombies, an eleven-map co-operative mode with its own currencies, its own weapons and quests that run to seventeen steps. They share a menu, a weapon roster and almost nothing else.
That split is worth knowing before you decide where to spend an evening, because progress on one side barely helps you on the other. This hub is organised around it: the Zombies half first, the multiplayer half second, and then the short list of things that genuinely cross between them.
The Zombies half
Zombies is the larger and stranger of the two, and the thing that separates its eleven maps is how long each one keeps you unarmed before it lets you upgrade a weapon. Our Zombies maps guide ranks the whole roster by that setup cost, from remastered classics that ask for a few thousand points and one lever pull, up to the launch map where five objects, four rituals and then a fifth ritual stand between you and the Pack-a-Punch machine.
Each map then breaks down into the jobs it asks of you. Turning the power on can be a switch or a hunt for three fuses. Reaching the upgrade machine can mean linking teleporters, teleporting the machine in pieces, or shooting a flying Apothicon out of the sky and climbing inside it. Wonder weapons range from a lucky Mystery Box pull to a bow with four separate upgrade quests attached. Every one of those has its own guide underneath the maps section.
The multiplayer half
Multiplayer is the more conventional side, and the two things that decide how you do in it are the map and the mode. Twelve base maps ship with the game, almost all of them built on the same three-lane skeleton but each with its own wall-running routes and head-glitch spots, and our multiplayer maps tips walks all twelve. The multiplayer modes tips cover what changes when the objective changes, from flag carrying to lone-wolf free for all.
The gear itself is a slot problem. Our loadouts guide looks at five strong setups through what each one deliberately leaves empty, because four of the five skip the secondary weapon entirely and spend that budget on perks instead. What you are allowed to build depends on rank, and the ladder that governs it is in the mechanics section.
What the two halves share
Three currencies run under all of this and none of them convert into each other. Points unlock doors and perk machines, then vanish along with the match. Liquid Divinium pays for GobbleGums and carries over, but refuses to be farmed on demand. Rank unlocks multiplayer gear permanently and is silent on Zombies entirely. Our mechanics guide covers all three, including the fastest reliable Divinium loop and the habit that roughly doubles your points income per zombie.
Only one thing genuinely passes between the halves, and it is decorative. A camo set unlocks from the kills you rack up against the undead, and it goes with you into competitive lobbies, which makes even a bad survival run quietly productive. Our camos guide sorts the full roster by what each pattern asks you to prove, from kill counts and headshot ladders to the two mastery camos that only summarise the others.
Where to start
| If you have | Go here |
|---|---|
| Twenty minutes and no plan | A low-setup Zombies map from the maps guide |
| A full lobby and an evening | One of the long main quests, also in the maps guide |
| A rank under 20 | The beginner setup in the loadouts guide |
| A gun you already like | The headshot ladder in the camos guide |
| A map you keep dying on | The lane breakdown in maps tips |
| An objective mode you avoid | The mode notes in modes tips |
Whichever side you pick, the sections above go a layer deeper and then hand you off to the detailed guide for each individual job. Zombies rewards knowing the map before you load it; multiplayer rewards knowing what your rank has actually unlocked. Start with whichever of those two questions you cannot answer yet.