Fans were excited when last week a leaked trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare seemed to show that a Zombies mode would be making it into the game. As Advanced Warfare is from Sledgehammer, Activision’s newest developer recruit, it was unknown if Zombies, a Treyarch tradition, would appear as a mode in the new game.

Now, we have confirmation that Zombies are indeed coming to Advanced Warfare, but how they’re coming might upset fans.





Announced by a GameStop press release, access to an upcoming Zombies mode is granted through the purchase of the game’s mammoth $50 DLC Season Pass, which includes five maps from the get-go, all maps after that, and now apparently, Zombies.





Though Call of Duty is known for its traditional deathmatch-style multiplayer and summer blockbuster-esque story campaigns, there is a huge contingent of fans who adore Zombies, and some who play it almost exclusively, as it’s a very different type of game than any of the other modes with its own kind of strategy and challenges.









Needless to say, many Zombies fans are incredibly displeased that the mode is now being cordoned off into DLC, and being advertised as part of a ludicrous $50 season pass to boot.





That season pass price alone should raise more than a few eyebrows, as we’re now approaching a point of no return where it will literally cost double to get a game with a promise of all its extra content at launch. That might be acceptable if it were only map packs, but now that entire gameplay modes like Zombies are being cut from the main game and converted into DLC, that’s more than a little bold.









Granted, Activision can essentially do whatever it wants with Call of Duty, given the fact that any new installment is going to be one of the top selling games of the year. But because they know they have that freedom, they’re going to keep constantly pushing the bounds of what’s acceptable to charge extra for, and now Zombies is on the chopping block.





We still know little about Activision/Sledgehammer’s plans for Zombies. Maybe it was never supposed to be a third pillar of the game alongside story and multiplayer, and they just added it in even though it wasn’t a Treyarch production because they know people like it. And I assume the Zombies DLC isn’t only going to be available through purchase of a season pass, as I have to imagine it will be sold separately when the time comes. But if these are the only points of consolation, it’s still rather maddening from the consumer’s perspective.





Activision must be confident enough in their playerbase at this point to know that there’s a market for something as seemingly absurd as a $50 season pass, or else it wouldn’t exist. It does seem like a crazy amount of maps will likely end up being included in that total, not to mention Zombies now, but still, $110 up front for all of a single game’s content is pushing it for any franchise. That’s a third of the price of an entire Xbox One if you buy it on sale right now





Again, the question with DLC is always “where does it end?” With Call of Duty, the annual money pile it creates allows Activision to experiment more than most other series would dare. The only way to stop this kind of thing is to reject it, and though would I would say $50 season passes are nearing the end of the line, it’s hard to tell in the industry these days.





We’ll have more information about Zombies as it’s released, and Advanced Warfare officially comes out tomorrow, though select retailers (including the digital store) are selling copies today.



