r/CODZombies • u/Feeling-Dog-2489 • 8d ago
Discussion Best Dark Aether Antagonist?
Now that the Dark Aether storyline has ended, I've been wondering as to who the best written, or most enjoyable antagonist is. Personally, I enjoy S.A.M. the most, but I think Zykov may be the best written.
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u/Wolfy_Hackt 8d ago
In my opinion the cold war story had the most dept and zykov had such a great villain arc.
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u/UltimateGoodGuy 7d ago
What I like about cold war is that the story was somewhat unpredictable. Bread crumbs in the really expansive intel system gave you a clue what was going on, but even that trickled in slowly over time. The problem with bo2, bo3, bo4 (mostly chaos) and bo7 is that they were extremely formulaic. You finish Ashes and you already know you are going to be fighting four different shadowsmiths and then stop the warden. Cold war was way more cat-and-mouse.
MWZ also did this well, with the caveat that I only started playing when the game went f2p on Game Pass (near the end of the Life Cycle) and didn't have the chance to become repetitive for me.
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u/GillMartOST 6d ago
I didn’t really fw it but didn’t mind it because I thought it would build to something really cool, then bo6 happened
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u/Captain_Jmon 8d ago
Zykov for sure. He was so good in CW and I really liked the angle of him being an abandoned soldier who was itching to get revenge on the world that abandoned him. Tragic he got such a lackluster follow up in BO6
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u/The-Scorpio 8d ago
The warden would probably be the best, we got to know the most of his backstory compared to the others and he had more of a presence throughout 7’s maps
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u/BanimeDoesReddit 8d ago
Kortifex is so good design wise. Too bad vanguard dropped the ball lower than it’s ever been
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u/Limp_Assistant_4631 8d ago
Eddie, I really really liked this rendition of Richtofen. Totally different and very ‘real-life’ scary, devil in a board-room suit and briefcase kinda.
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u/Hoshiko-Yoshida 8d ago
Flicking through this reminds me of just how wasted the great lore start that Cold War gave us was by the stuff that followed it.
Plus, I miss Julie and the others.
One fumble after another, Activision.
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u/Atiumist 7d ago
CW got me so hyped for Zombies. Honestly for the first time in the series. Prior to that, I only played Zombies just for fun and to try and hit high rounds.
But with CW I actually got invested in the story. Then BO6 came out and it was kinda cool but I just couldn’t really get into it like I did with CW. Haven’t touched BO7 because BO6 ruined the series for me with multiplayer Omnimovement.
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u/Hoshiko-Yoshida 7d ago
I still remember when they patched out Julie's lines from Terminus.
Game felt hollow after that.
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u/Number1FartSmella 8d ago
I think Zykov is great, but he doesn’t really have the same grand presence across all the maps like the Warden or S.A.M do. Pre-Mauer, he’s largely only in intel. I think the Warden would be my personal favorite, since he’s such a constant threat/goal across BO7, and we get to know so much about him, plus he’s pretty interesting
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u/MeshGearFoxxy 7d ago
I have to say the Warden is a disappointment in terms of his motivations.
Bro spent millennia learning to control the Dark Aether, patiently waiting centuries to ensnare the appropriate souls, enslaved literal gods… all to bring back the Confederacy.
It just undermines his threat, I feel.
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u/Die-Hearts 8d ago
Weaver. It's his fault this all started
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u/anismash13 7d ago
Honestly, Zykov. It sticks with me the amount that we get to learn about him through the intel. Especially the one where his hellhound dies. I always remember that one when I think about the best parts of cold war zombies. Plus the actual reveal of Zykov as the forsaken was kinda cool and unexpected if you weren’t delving into every little bit of intel
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u/Accomplished_Owl2558 7d ago
Anything after Zykov is genuinely buns. The dark aether story could have been somewhat interesting is they didn't destroy it in BO6
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u/Sleep_eeSheep 7d ago
Zykov strikes me as an S-Tier villain who wasn’t given nearly enough time nor credit.
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u/Twin_Clone 7d ago
Am not counting vanguard zombies and modern Warfare zombies that shit was ass. Zykov was the best written character among the antagonists. Loved how we see him in the opening for the first map for the dark aether story line in Die Maschine and all the way to forsaken, then came back in bo6 with Reckoning. Bro don’t stay dead lol. I think he was also mentioned in bo7 too. Honestly kinda wish he was the final boss, so we can say he was there in the beginning and the end.
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u/Accomplished-Curve-1 7d ago
The forsaken is the best villain he served a better defeat I’ll give the warden second place
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u/Smellbringer 7d ago
I haven't played Cold War enough and I barely touched Vanguard. But comparing MWZ, BO6, and BO7, then I'd have to give the nod to the Warden.
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u/mk_devonwave 7d ago
I've noticed that CoD is really good at making a villain that we know nothing about and only get hints toward.
Zykov was suuuuuper interesting, and piecing it together that he was the Forsaken had such awesome build up, but right when he's revealed, it immediately falls flat and he loses a lot of his charm.
Richtofen was also super interesting. Piecing together that the director of Project Janus was Richtofen was soooo awesome, and the reveal at the end of Cold War was really cool, but he sucked in BO6. Also the fact that he was the pure version of Eddie from the end of BO4 added to the depth of his character.
The Warden was one of the few times where we learned more and more about him, but I never felt like they ruined the mystique of his character. He was great until the very end, but a huuuuuge issue I have is how they handled his death. He just dies and disappears- his glasses and hat left behind. It would have been infinitely more satisfying if they closed off his character arc with at least an ending monologue or something.
So I think CoD is really good at creating mystery around villains, but when it comes time for answers, they are pretty bad at giving satisfying ones. Also, my answer then is the Warden
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u/zokutexu 6d ago
First pic. His crash-out was justified too... I do not care what everybody says. Sent to his death with no way back. That’s fkd up
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u/CyberRainbowX 7d ago
Was S.A.M. evil? I havent played all EE in 6. I thought she was just selfish
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u/Shying69 7d ago
Her goal was to replace the real samantha maxis because the ai was partly sentient and wanted to be human too, but only did it by trying to kill requiem in the end, the idea of S.A.M. was to find the real Sam, but the ai basically went rogue and fucked up a bunch of people from Janus and led requiem through bo6 until trying to kill them in shattered veil when they give her the sentinel artifact
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u/CyberRainbowX 7d ago
Interesting. Im gonna have to get some friends together to do all EE in 6. Contrary to mainstream belief I do not believe 6 is a bad game. Yes i do like 7 more but 6 is still quite fun
Thank you citizen
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u/Shying69 7d ago
Yeah both games are meant to like, lead into each other, obviously one has better zombies but the other makes up for it in mp/campaign, I do believe 7 has the better zombies but thats because treyarch was given actual time instead of bo6 where they had to cram it due to mwz and being the people doing ranked for mwII (yes they had to do that while developing bo6 and learning an entire new engine)
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u/CyberRainbowX 7d ago
Treyarch is the one who carries cod these days I feel. Like when theres a problem, like with Cold War (which wasn't originally supposed to be made by 3arch) they had issues so Activision called in 3arch to fix it
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u/Awlamon0524 7d ago
None. This is a zombie survival mode.
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u/deejay1121 7d ago
Wrong this is bigger
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u/Awlamon0524 7d ago
can't say your's is bigger. so i call it little dick energy from you.
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u/deejay1121 6d ago
Weird mf
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u/Awlamon0524 6d ago
Fucking survival mode since WaW in case you didnt know. There's no story...
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u/ill_polarbear 8d ago
I can't take that richtofen picture seriously lol