Despite spending hundreds of hours playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 last year, as I made it my mission to complete the Zombies camo grind without using the Directed mode shortcut, I’ve already deleted Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 off my PS5.
To be clear, this isn’t because I hate the game or anything like that. On the contrary, I absolutely adore the direction Black Ops 7 Zombies is going in with Cursed mode, Survival maps, and more unique round-based settings. Multiplayer is very solid, too, even if I prefer hero shooters nowadays. Instead, my reason for deleting Call of Duty is the same reason that so many other gamers remove it from their platform of choice when they’re not actively playing it: it takes up too much space. Thanks to the new Fallout crossover, though, I’ll have to sacrifice something else to make some room, because the content is simply too cool to miss out on.
I’ve always been a massive fan of the Fallout franchise, though my love for it has grown with every passing year. I played Fallout 3 and New Vegas when I was younger, and like many others, I’m hoping that the rumors of Fallout remasters are true so I can enjoy a modern version of them as an adult. When Fallout 4 released, I was there on day one, earning the Platinum Trophy despite the Benevolent Leader achievement fighting me every step of the way. And though the pseudo-MMO Fallout 76 initially disappointed me, I recently gave it another shot after years of improvements, and I’m truly loving my time with it now. Add on the excellent Amazon series, and there’s plenty of reasons to adore Fallout. And now, two of my favorite things — CoD Zombies and Fallout — are crossing paths.
While many are understandably focused on the cosmetics tied to Call of Duty’s Fallout collab, my attention is turned elsewhere. Will I purchase and complete the event pass? Yes, probably — I can’t NOT have the Ghoul and a fully armored Maximus, after all. But that isn’t the real reason I’m so pumped for this Fallout collab. For me, it’s the LTMs that are getting me to redownload Black Ops 7 in the same week I sacrificed it for storage space. Across multiplayer, Zombies, and even the campaign extraction shooter Endgame, there is special Fallout gameplay to enjoy… though obviously it’s the Zombies content that I’ll be playing the most.
Note: This is actually the second Call of Duty and Fallout team-up. In Modern Warfare 3, Task Force 141 received some Vault suits, though they don’t come close to the show-accurate Operators that just dropped in BO7.
The Call of Duty and Fallout Collab Goes Above and Beyond With Playable Content
The first of three limited-time game modes that went live today is S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Mayhem, which sees players doing battle across irradiated versions of existing maps. If they take too much radiation — they’ll be able to keep an eye on rad build-up via a Geiger Counter that’s been added to the HUD — they’ll have to deal with negative effects. They’ll also be fighting over drops pulled straight from the Fallout franchise, with unique models for every item. Said drops, which have a chance to appear when killing enemies, are:
- Pumpkin Pie: Increases player health.
- Nuka-Cola Cranberry: Multiplies player score.
- Jet: Increased overall speed for Call of Duty’s Operators.
- Psycho: Improves hip fire accuracy and headshot damage.
- RadAway: Cut down your current radiation level. Rad levels also drop after eliminating enemies and are further mitigated when playing with the objective.
- Luck Bobblehead: Increases the odds of finding better power-ups and RadAway from fallen enemies. All players wearing a Fallout-themed Operator Skin, including the two free Operator Skin rewards from the Fallout Event Pass, will start the match with this buff active automatically.
While players will likely be annoyed that they have to wear a Fallout skin in this mode if they don’t want a disadvantage, it sounds very entertaining. One of my favorite Call of Duty events ever was BO6’s Squid Game collab, as the Pentathlon multiplayer mode didn’t just nail the Squid Game vibes via its audio design, but was hugely enjoyable in its own right because of the extra mechanics. Giving players something else to keep track of via radiation, as well as Buffs to chase, could lead to a similar vibe, and it should guarantee a level playing field that those doubting Treyarch’s word on SBMM will undoubtedly appreciate.
The other multiplayer game mode is The Ghouls, which swaps the 6v6 focus of S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Mayhem with a 24-player spin on Infected. Instead of Zombies or crazed soldiers with knives, infected players respawn as feral ghouls. Basic Ghouls have Ninja and Tracker perks with the Recon specialty, and they can even chain kills to transform themselves into a Deathclaw. The first Ghoul of the match (and randomly selected Ghouls throughout) will be Glowing, with Glowing Ghouls having more health and exploding when killed to deal high radiation damage to every survivor nearby. As for survivors, they’ll have to monitor radiation levels like in the other Fallout LTMs, but they can pick up drops from Zombies like Max Ammo while also chaining kills to boost their movement speed, weapon handling, and headshot damage. If that wasn’t enough, they also have three streaks when they spawn: an LDBR, a H.A.R.P., and a War Machine.
Note: In addition to these modes, multiplayer fans can enjoy Vault Town, a Vault-Tec-themed spin on the iconic Nuketown map. Endgame’s content features a Deathclaw world event where the area is filled with toxic air, forcing players to enter and escape the bomb zone quickly.
Call of Duty Zombies’ Fallout Content Lets You Battle Deathclaws, and I’m All In
While I’m absolutely going to try the above modes — a bit of Infected is always fun with friends — Zombies has been my main focus ever since it debuted in Call of Duty: World at War. Realistically, I should be going into this LTM with trepidation; barring maybe the original Jingle Hells in Black Ops Cold War, CoD Zombies’ LTMs have consistently failed to leave a lasting impact on me, with content like the Squid Game mode Dead Light, Green Light being extremely shallow (the opposite of the stellar multiplayer offerings). However, even if this mode is another huge disappointment, it has something that the other attempts do not: a unique mini-boss to fight.
Called Project RADS, the Fallout-Themed LTM will be accessible on both full-fledged maps, Astra Malorum and Ashes of the Damned. This is a huge boon when it comes to variety, as other LTMs tend to be restricted to a single map, making them get stale quicker. In Project RADS, players no longer make points (Essence), instead collecting the Fallout currency Caps from dead enemies to purchase items around the map. Players will need to heal via moldy, post-apocalyptic food items, which — like the other LTMs — spikes players’ radiation levels. They can drink RadX or RadAway to remove said levels, but these drops will be hard to come by, so they should play carefully. The following debuffs trigger as radiation gets worse, appearing in the following order:
- Reduced movement speed
- Reduced weapon damage
- Frozen Field Upgrade charge
- A slow-but-steady health drain
- Perks are removed at max rads
Overall, this mode sounds a fair bit different from traditional Zombies, and should be fairly challenging. For those arguing that modern Zombies is too easy, needing to manage radiation levels should certainly make things harder. For me though, as cool as swapping points out for Caps is, this mode will live or die by its promised Deathclaw encounter. Seeing the scariest creature of the wasteland in the Amazon series has been a joy, giving me the same feeling of awe that the live-action Bloaters and Clickers of HBO’s The Last of Us did, but being able to battle one in my favorite co-op experience of all time? That’s as good as it gets. I’m also hopeful that there will be a Deathclaw injector scorestreak that lets me slam, claw, and charge through the undead given that there’s a Deathclaw streak in The Ghouls mode, though I’ll have to wait and see if that’s the case.
CoD Zombies’ First Collab Boss Could Be a Game-Changer
Treyarch introducing a unique enemy from another franchise as a CoD Zombies mini-boss is a big deal, as it opens the door to similarly bold concepts for future collabs. For instance, a Doom collab wouldn’t feel out of place given BO7’s futuristic setting, and if it happens, players could fight a Cacodemon mini-boss while Imps replace the basic undead foes. A Halo collab could see players fighting the Flood, while a Brute could serve as a Mangler-like mini-boss with unique attacks. The opportunities are truly endless now that the Fallout collab has raised the bar (Gears of War content is another particularly cool opportunity for a Zombies LTM), so hopefully, the Deathclaw is just the first of many unique CoD Zombies enemies pulled from other IP.
I can already picture throwing a Fallout playlist on Spotify and firing a Ray Gun at a Deathclaw, and it’s something that is really a dream come true for me. How other players have felt about collabs like Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy is the way I feel about this content, so while there’s plenty to criticize Call of Duty and Activision for, I can’t help but shower this collab in praise. It even has me considering re-downloading Call of Duty: Warzone, which offers its own LTM involving Power Armor drops and fusion core charging, despite losing interest in the battle royale genre long ago. As I start the (painfully long) download process for Black Ops 7, I’m gearing up to fight a Deathclaw as Edward Richtofen, an absurd concept that sounds like something out of a custom Zombies map. And as someone who is pretty much the perfect target audience for said concept, I truly can’t wait to experience it.
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By Richard Warren 9 January 2026
