In an announcement sure to raise a few eyebrows, Activision and Treyarch have revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops III for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will not include the Campaign mode featured as part of the PlayStation 4/Xbox One/PC release. Instead the last-gen versions will just feature the Multiplayer and Zombies gameplay modes.
According to the announcement, the “ambitious scope” of the cooperative campaign, which can be played cooperatively by 1-4 players, “could not be faithfully recreated on old generation hardware.” A number of other features designed to leverage the new hardware, such as the Weapon Paint Shop and new suite of eSports tools, will also be absent from the PS3/X360 versions.
Last-gen players will not be left entirely without a narrative experience, since all versions of the game will still include “Shadows of Evil,” the Lovecraftian 1940s film noir-inspired zombies gameplay mode. The narrative elements of the mode will be supported by its cast of Hollywood notables, including Heather Graham, Jeff Goldblum, Ron Perlman, and others. Call of Duty campaigns have also always been secondary to the competitive multiplayer experience, which will still be accessible by all players: “PS3 and Xbox 360 players can continue to look forward to a new experience of Black Ops 3 multiplayer, including the new momentum-based, chain-movement system, as well as the all-new Specialist class of 9 Black Ops soldiers, which fundamentally change the way players engage in combat.”
The PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Black Ops III will retail at a recommended price of $50 (as opposed to $60 for the new-gen versions). That will also include a bonus download of the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, which remains among the best-selling video games of all time.
What do you think? Is this fair encouragement for players to upgrade to the new generation of consoles, or is it an insult to series fans? Would you rather play a limited and slightly discounted version on the older consoles, or skip it altogether? Sound off in the comments!
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”