1. The Illuminati
Favourite baddies of conspiracy theorists around the world, the Illuminati have also proven popular with game developers for years, and Call of Duty Zombies is no exception. In fact, there’s a generous smattering of references to the shadowy world rulers dating back to the early years of the game mode.
Specifically noted on the Call of Duty: Black Ops maps Five and Ascension, the Illuminati play into the lore in a way that has yet to be explained. In Five, every special round indicated that you would have a visit from the Pentagon Thief. For those that have never played the map, he was a character that would chase you around and steal your equipped weapon. Upon the theft, you would teleport away, forcing you to chase him down. Basically a huge pain in the rear.
If you succeeded in killing him, you got your weapon back as well as max ammo.The thief’s bag straps listed an Illuminati code that reads “living dead.” The Ascension map was also littered with nods to the Illuminati, but most prominent of these were the All Seeing Eyes on the monitors scattered around the map. At various times, randomly placed television sets across the map would display the famous illuminati eye-in-the-triangle motif. Again, we were never given an explanation as to why, but the obsession with the Illuminati was certainly present.
With the Call of Duty: WW2 just released, we can no doubt expect a trickle of further mysteries as players explore. And who knows, perhaps some of the mysteries we’ve just covered will rise from the grave like shamblers that gave their name to the mode we now love.