Steam version of Black Ops 3 with Zombie Chronicles. It has a ton of official maps, and the steam version has a near infinite amount of custom community made ones. World at War is a close second just for custom zombies
Strongly agree. I love how the steam workshop lets you easily download modded maps at the click of a button, plus you can play those custom maps with your friends.
I absolutely second this. There are a few changes that I didn’t mind and kept the game fresh. The other zombie modes do not interest me nearly enough or are too different to what I was used to.
The first Black Ops: Cold War has the best overall zombie experience, I would say. Best progression system, mission variety, and level design. Has local split screen or online play for up to 4 players. We played all of the currently released zombies and the BO:CW was the most complete zombies experience IMO.
If you have PS Plus, Cold War is one of the free games this month. While some people prefer the more classic style, definitely don't sleep on this one. As a bonus, all the dlc content is free in the post-bo4 games.
Black ops 3 is also a great choice, just look into the dlc options before purchasing (it's all good, just deciding on a bundle will save some money). The PC version also benefits from steam workshop support, there's a lot of great original maps and even remakes of some classic ones.
Anything past BO1 is filled with bullshit that just detracts from the whole experience. Sure, there is more to do in the later games, but they also lost a lot of the simplicity that made zombies great.
If you're on console, Black Ops 2. The maps aren't my favourite, but IMO the core zombies experience was perfected and it's been all downhill since. Polished experience with a solid gun roster and nice difficulty. Plus there's maps for nearly every skill level. Just wish there was more than just Nuketown and the sub-Tranzits for those of us who want a pure survival experience.
If you're on PC, WaW or BO3. WaW hss a massive back catalogue of custom maps, plus is one of the few CoD games that's reasonably priced on Steam. BO3 requires you to pay a lot more, but is a much easier source of playing modded zombies. This is just my opinion, but I'm not a big fan of unmodded BO3, guns are uninspired and feel awful, and gobblegums are a fuck that never should've been added. And then objectively, WaW is super buggy, and has a fit if you alt tab, but, subjectively, the simpler custom maps (not to say they can't be complex, Leviathan was a WaW custom map) give off a nostalgic vibe.