Development for the game began soon after the release of Black Ops, with Activision promising that the follow-up would bring 🔑 "meaningful innovation" to the Call of Duty franchise. Black Ops II is the first game in the series to feature 🔑 futuristic warfare technology and the first to present branching storylines driven by player choice as well as selecting weapons before 🔑 starting story mode missions. It also offers a 3D display option. The game was officially revealed on May 1, 2012, 🔑 following a set of leaked information released during the previous months.
Strike Force missions allow the player to control a number 🔑 of different war assets, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, jet fighters and robots. If the player dies in a Strike 🔑 Force mission, the campaign continues recording that loss, as opposed to letting the player load a previously saved checkpoint. The 🔑 player's progress in the Strike Force missions may go on to change even the plans of the story's antagonist, Raul 🔑 Menendez.[13] By the end of the game, the player may have changed the results of the new Cold War.
Zombies takes 🔑 place throughout various time periods, mostly focused during the modern time, in a post-apocalyptic world, created as a result of 🔑 the missile launch from the Moon striking the Earth. The majority of the story follows four new characters: Samuel Stuhlinger 🔑 (David Boat), Marlton Johnson (Scott Menville), Abigail "Misty" Briarton (Stephanie Lemelin) and Russman (Keith Szarabajka). Dr. Edward Richtofen (Nolan North), 🔑 one of the previous playable characters from the previous game, returns as the demonic announcer, overseeing the four characters. Another 🔑 returning character is Dr. Ludvig Maxis (Fred Tatasciore), who instructs the new group to help him defeat Richtofen. Players can 🔑 choose whether to help Maxis or Richtofen, which will have different results once the story ends. The map "Mob of 🔑 the Dead" features a new crew of characters: Albert "The Weasel" Arlington (Joe Pantoliano), Billy Handsome (Ray Liotta), Michael "Finn" 🔑 O'Leary (Michael Madsen), and Salvatore "Sal" DeLuca (Chazz Palminteri). The map "Origins" features an alternate version of the original crew: 🔑 Tank Dempsey (Steven Blum), Nikolai Belinski (also voiced by Tatasciore), Takeo Masaki (Tom Kane), and Richtofen (Nolan North), as well 🔑 as Maxis' daughter, Samantha (Julie Nathanson).
Ten years later following the events on the Moon, Earth has been reduced to a 🔑 crumbling, hellish wasteland overrun by zombies. In this new world, four survivors - Samuel Stuhlinger, Abigail "Misty" Briarton, Marlton, and 🔑 Russman - have banded together to survive in Washington with the help of a bus driven by a robotic driver. 🔑 The four are contacted by both Richtofen and Maxis, who is now a digital artificial intelligence, for aid against the 🔑 other. Both former scientists request the four to assist them in powering up a tower within the area to work 🔑 in their favor. Once done, regardless of the path they choose, they are teleported by Richtofen to a crumbling skyline 🔑 in Shanghai, China. The four learn of The Flesh, a cannibalistic cult that chooses to eat zombie meat, as well 🔑 as the beginnings of a new airborne pandemic of Element 115. Stuhlinger is threatened by Richtofen, who knows of his 🔑 past as a member of The Flesh, which allows only him to hear Richtofen and not the others. At the 🔑 site, Maxis and Richtofen once again instruct the four to power up a second tower.
The first major DLC pack is 🔑 called Revolution. It was announced on January 8, 2013, and released for Xbox 360 on January 29 and PC and 🔑 PS3 on February 28[56] The pack contained four new multiplayer maps: Downhill, Hydro, Mirage and Grind; and two new Zombies 🔑 modes: Turned and Die Rise. Also included was the first DLC weapon: the Peacekeeper. Turned occurs in the Diner segment 🔑 of the TranZit map from the original release, and allows up to four players to fight each other in two 🔑 teams – one human against three zombies. The Die Rise map is a larger zombies survival map taking place in 🔑 two semi-destroyed skyscrapers in Shanghai, where one to four players use elevators to travel between floors.[57]