Call of Duty: Modern Warfare nearly had a zombies mode, and we've just got our first look at it

News
By published

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare dev shares concept art for scrapped zombies mode

(Image credit: Aaron Beck)

A never-before-seen batch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare zombies concept art has revealed Infinity Ward's early (and scrapped) ideas for bringing the franchise's famous PvE mode to its 2019 shooter.

The concept art was shared by Infinity Ward principal artist Aaron Beck, who apparently "got clearance" to reveal the images on his Instagram account, seen below. 

"I was thinking it would be fun to play with the classic Call of Duty zombie gameplay," says Beck, "hinting here at some sort of Russian special forces soldier and his duo of quadruped robots, holding captive zombified soldiers by leashes around their necks."

It's unclear how far this potential Zombies mode made it into development at Infinity Ward, or whether Beck was just playing around with ideas during the early conceptualisation phase of Modern Warfare's pipeline. There's still a chance, of course, that the walking dead could make it into Call of Duty: Warzone, although we wouldn't recommend holding your breath on that one. After all, during the game's reveal, creative director Jacob Minkoff said to PlayStation Lifestyle: "We’re trying to create an authentic, realistic feeling world. We don’t have the flexibility to do something like put zombies in the game."

While Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is free from the zombie plague, it's all too possible that Call of Duty 2020 will be bringing the popular PvE mode back to the shooter franchise, with the game rumoured to be in development at Treyarch - the same studio who invented Zombies all the way back in 2008 with Call of Duty: World at War. 

The Call of Duty: Warzone squads kill record is getting ridiculous - how high will players push the body count for Season 4 Reloaded?

Alex Avard
Alex Avard
Former Features Writer

Alex is a former Features Writer at GamesRadar+, which once made him responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet!