Several years ago, Jason Schreier revealed in an article that Black Ops 3 was going to feature a broad, open-world campaign, but it was ultimately scrapped mid-development. Now, in a series of images leaked online, it seems that that certainly was the case, with almost one hundred shots showing multiple environments, maps, modes, and assets.
Black Ops 3 wasn’t by any means one of the best games in the franchise. It was a welcome expansion to the sub-franchise itself, but the general consensus was that Black Ops 3 wasn’t a patch on its predecessor, released in 2012.
Could Black Ops 3 have been so much more than it was?
Could Black Ops 3 Have Been an Open-World Game?
Black Ops 3 was something of a controversial game, to some extent. It was the first to break away considerably from the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms, with Treyarch building a slimmed-down, low-res, multiplayer-only version for those consoles. However, the old-gen variant was almost laughable when compared side-by-side with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game.
While the story was a cooperative campaign at heart, it wasn’t long, and it wasn’t by any means innovative or intuitive – it was a Call of Duty campaign, and it was relatively open and shut. But, in a series of images leaked on Imgur by Reddit user u/Purpletoaster, it’s revealed that Black Ops 3 could have been a massive, sprawling open-world adventure.
In the images, lots of content is revealed from the open-world environment that was ultimately scrapped midway through development:
- Several large maps studded with points of interest.
- Multiple mini-modes, including sabotage, defence, assassinations, and retrieval.
- Day/Night and weather cycles would have been present.
- Economy and construction mechanics.
Sadly, this ambitious effort was worked on for around a year, reportedly, before being scrapped. Although, it wasn’t the end for every asset, as some of the content was re-used in what would become Black Ops 3’s linear campaign.
Given that Blackout appeared in the follow-up title, Black Ops 4, it’s likely Treyarch persisted with that image of creating one large, open-world environment for players to explore.
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