5 Pieces of Need-to-Know Intel on Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – Awakening

Good news for Call of Duty fans: Treyarch and Activision have just unleashed Awakening, the first downloadable content pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. As has been the case with many Call of Duty DLC packs before it, Awakening includes four multiplayer maps, as well as a new chapter in Black Ops 3’s Zombies mode, titled “Der Eisendrache.” Here are five key pieces of info that you need to know about it.

Six Frags

Awakening’s most playful map begs that you pack a wetsuit. Set in an abandoned water theme park, the Splash map comes complete with water slides, a wrecked pirate ship, and a slow river ride that weaves through a fantastical forgotten city. The map is built to coerce an open flow of combat – with lots of opportunities for underwater gameplay.

Run the Gauntlet

Set inside in a military training facility, Gauntlet abides by the philosophy of developer Treyarch’s classic “three-lane” map structure. Each of these three lanes has its own unique environmental approach, including a tangled jungle, a sub-zero arctic zone, and a rainy urban cityscape.

Throwback Thursdays

One of Awakening’s new maps, Skyjacked, is a re-imagined version of Hijacked, a popular Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 multiplayer map. Set on a vertical take-off and landing aircraft (or VTOL) in the clouds above urban Zurich, Switzerland, Skyjacked affords you the opportunity to explore the map in a variety of new ways. Brush up on the original to give yourself an early advantage!

There Be Zombies

As mentioned, “Der Eisendrache” (German for “The Iron Dragon”), is the first chapter of Black Ops 3’s Zombies DLC adventure, and takes players on a journey with protagonists Richtofen, Nicolai, Takeo, and Dempsey. It’s set inside Griffin Castle – an eerie, medieval haunt built on an ancient site in Austria, where massive deposits of Element 115 have recently been discovered. Expect plot twists galore… and many, many zombies.

Chocolate, Watches, Bloodshed

Set in the snowy outskirts of Zurich, the premise behind Awakening’s multiplayer map Rise has it built by the Coalescence Corporation, as a construction project for a massive, subterranean research campus. The map’s design fosters a mix of classic Call of Duty-style cover combat, with delineated sections of the map offering distinct styles of gameplay.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 – Awakening is now available for Xbox One. You can purchase it on its own, or grab the Season Pass, which also guarantees you access to the game’s next three DLC packs.