Exo Zombies was weird. Honestly, looking back at 2014 and 2015, Sledgehammer Games took a massive gamble by trying to out-Treyarch Treyarch. They didn't just add zombies; they gave them jetpacks. Well, technically you had the jetpack, but then the zombies started jumping too, and suddenly the "looping" strategies we’d all mastered in Black Ops were totally useless. It was chaotic.
If you’re looking for advanced warfare zombies maps, you’re probably either feeling nostalgic for the era of Kevin Spacey and Bill Paxton or you’re trying to figure out why the community still argues about whether Outbreak was actually good. Unlike the slow, methodical crawl of classic World at War maps, this era was about verticality. If you stopped moving for three seconds, you were dead. Period.
The Rough Start: Outbreak and the Paywall Problem
Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Advanced Warfare didn't even ship with a full Zombies mode. You had to buy the Havoc DLC just to play the first map, Outbreak. That move ticked off a lot of people. When you finally got into the map, it was... okay? It felt like a tech demo for the Exo suit mechanics.
The setting was a generic Atlas research facility. You had your classic celebrity cast—John Malkovich, Jon Bernthal, Rose McGowan, and Bill Paxton—which was cool, but the map itself was basically just a series of grey hallways. The biggest addition here was the Infection round. Instead of a dog round, you had these green, glowing zombies that would "infect" your suit. You had to rush to a decontamination pad or you’d lose your health. It was stressful in a way that felt kind of cheap, mostly because the pads were often on the other side of the map.
But Outbreak did one thing right: it taught us how to jump. You couldn't just sit in a corner with a Remington. You had to use the boost jump to navigate the tiered levels of the facility. It changed the DNA of the game.
Infection: The Burger Town Map No One Asked For
Then came Infection, set in a ruined Burgertown. Yeah, the meme. This map is widely considered the weakest of the advanced warfare zombies maps for one specific reason: the escort missions.
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Sledgehammer decided that surviving waves of the undead wasn't enough. They forced you to protect survivors and escort them to an extraction point. If you failed, you got a penalty. In a mode where the whole point is "don't die," being forced to baby-sit an AI pathfinding nightmare was frustrating. It broke the flow.
However, Infection introduced the Goliath—a massive, armored zombie in a mech suit. Taking that thing down required actual teamwork, which was a nice change of pace. The map also featured the Magnetron, a wonder weapon that was basically a microwave gun. It was fun to use, but compared to a Ray Gun or a Thundergun, it felt a bit underpowered.
Why the Verticality Changed Everything
In Treyarch’s maps, you usually find a "loop"—a path you run in a circle to gather zombies into a "train." In Advanced Warfare, the zombies could leap. You’d jump to a roof, and three of them would land right behind you. It turned the game into a high-speed twitch shooter. Some players loved the adrenaline; others felt it lost the "horror" vibe of the original series.
Carrier and the Turning Point
By the time the Supremacy DLC dropped, Sledgehammer started hitting their stride. Carrier is arguably the most complex map in the set. It takes place on an Atlas aircraft carrier, and it’s cramped. It’s dense. It’s got grenades that can teleport you.
What made Carrier interesting was the introduction of Bruce Campbell as Captain Lennox. He replaced... well, a certain character who died in the previous map. The "Oz" boss fight at the end of the Easter Egg was genuinely difficult. It wasn't just about shooting; it was about managing the environment.
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This map also introduced the Teleport Grenades and the Open Window mechanic, where you could literally get sucked out into the ocean if you weren't careful. It felt like the developers were finally having fun with the sci-fi setting instead of just trying to copy the Black Ops formula.
Descent: The Underwater Finale
The final map, Descent, took us to a sub-oceanic facility. Visually, it was stunning. It felt like Bioshock met Call of Duty. This map introduced the Trident, a wonder weapon that fired bouncing energy projectiles. It was chaotic, especially in the tight corridors of the facility.
But the real highlight of Descent was the ending. The boss fight against a mutated, giant version of one of the main characters was a spectacle. It wrapped up the "Exo Zombies" storyline in a way that felt earned, even if the plot was a bit of a B-movie mess.
The Mechanics That Defined (and Ruined) the Experience
If we’re being real, the upgrade system in these maps was a grind. Instead of just Pack-a-Punching once or twice, you had to upgrade your weapon 20 times. Each upgrade cost 2,500 credits. It was a massive point-sink. It meant that by round 30, you weren't even worried about the zombies; you were just worried about having enough cash to make your gun do actual damage.
Then there were the Exo Suits themselves. You didn't start with one. You had to find the Exo Room and buy it. If you died and got revived, you had to go back and get it again. It created this frantic "naked" run where you were vulnerable and slow until you reached the machine.
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The Weaponry Gap
One thing people forget about advanced warfare zombies maps is the CEL-3 Cauterizer. This was an energy shotgun that stayed viable for way longer than it had any right to. Most of the standard military rifles felt like pea-shooters by round 15, but the Cauterizer was a beast. Finding those specific "power" weapons was the only way to survive the later rounds.
Is It Worth Revisiting in 2026?
Honestly? Yes, but only if you have a full squad. Playing Exo Zombies solo is a nightmare because of the "EMZ" zombies—the ones that can disable your Exo suit with a single hit. If your suit gets disabled while you’re mid-jump over a gap, you’re dead. There’s no recovering from that.
But with friends, the chaos is hilarious. It’s a different kind of fun than the "calculated" survival of Black Ops 3. It’s messy, fast, and occasionally very annoying.
Practical Tips for Success
- Priority One: Get the Exo Suit immediately. Don't spend money on wall guns until you have movement.
- The 20-Upgrade Rule: Pick one gun and stick with it. Don't try to balance two upgraded weapons; you won't have the points.
- Master the Dash: Don't just jump. The "Exo Dash" (moving sideways or backward in the air) is the only way to avoid the EMZ blasts.
- Decontamination: On maps like Outbreak, always keep at least 500 credits in reserve. You never know when the infection round will hit, and being stuck without cash near a pad is a death sentence.
The legacy of these maps is complicated. They weren't the "Treyarch killers" people expected, but they offered a high-speed alternative that hasn't really been replicated since. Even Infinite Warfare and WWII zombies went back to a more grounded movement style. Exo Zombies remains a weird, jet-powered outlier in the history of the franchise.
To get the most out of these maps today, focus on mastering the "Descent" Easter Egg first. It’s the most polished experience of the four and offers the best reward for completion. If you can handle the verticality there, the rest of the maps will feel like a breeze. Just watch out for the Burger Boy.