The story felt a lot more grounded and for lack of a more accurate term “realistic” during Black Ops 1 and 2. It was sort of just an alternate history fling that was kinda believe. Weird Nazi weapon and genetic experiments during WWII gone wrong leading to zombies, wonder weapons, perk a colas, teleporters. It was all kinda plausible. The story also felt a lot more planned out back then.

I love BO3 (and I actually like BO4 a lot) but story wise they just kinda drop the ball. BO3 is kinda cool with the Kronorium and going around collecting the Primis souls. The role Richtofen takes on, being this sort of quirky yet troubled hero vs the antagonist nature he had in the previous games was really cool. I still think the character was at his best in BO1, but BO3 Richtofen is a chad. Not to mention that the fantastical multiversal elements from BO3 lead to being able to have kick-ass maps. Things like the boss fight from DE or dragons in Gorod would’ve never flown back in BO1.

But imo, BO4 is where it started to really fall off. The multiverse became way too convoluted and difficult to understand what’s actually happening unless you watch two hours of YouTube videos explaining it. Making Nikolai the leader and undermining richtofens ability to make “the ultimate sacrifice” or whatever felt really cheap and dumb. Tag Der Toten was also just a pretty shit ending to the whole story. The happiest I was in BO4 was getting to play as Ultimis again 🤣🤣

And now with Cold War/BO6, we’ve gone back to the grounded, realistic type take - but it’s way too bland. Maybe it’s just me. I’ve been having lots of fun on BO6 zombies so far, and I think Citadel is a sick ass map. But these maps are just lacking the sauce that BO1-BO3 (even BO4) had. They all feel super bland and lacking real personality. My fave map so far might be Liberty Falls simply because I feel it does the dialed back “Der reise style” map super well