Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Black Ops II is the mode’s most experimental entry. Its launch offering was Green Run — the bus-linked TranZit experience whose stops double as standalone Survival maps, plus the competitive Grief mode — introducing buildables, workbenches and a new crew, Victis, picking through the Earth the Moon missiles ruined. Die Rise and Buried continued that arc, with the Maxis-versus-Richtofen choice from Tower of Babble threading through all three quests.

Alongside the Victis story it delivered two period pieces that top community map rankings to this day: Mob of the Dead, the Alcatraz purgatory tale with Afterlife mode and the Blundergat, and Origins, the World War I reimagining that introduced the Primis crew, the elemental staffs, and the ending that pivots the entire storyline toward Black Ops III.