Focus your aggression. Complete your mission objectives to achieve victory.
Gameplay modes in Call of Duty: Black Ops III determine the victory conditions for every match. From the straightforward mayhem of Team Deathmatch to the hide and sneak intensity of Search & Destroy, every objective offers a different challenge.
Tailor your Specialist choice and your class loadouts to suit each mode. In objective modes that focus a lot of conflict around a single point such as Domination or Hardpoint, Smoke Grenades, Flak Jackets, and the like become more valuable. In a mode such as Capture the Flag or Uplink, however, it’s possible to play a fast and stealthy offensive player or a loaded down defensive player.
Deathmatch Modes
Pure combat. Take down every hostile in sight and stay alive to secure victory.
Free For All
Every man and woman for themselves, FFA matches are quick and intense, with hotspots of combat erupting around the map as players home in on any sounds of battle.
Stealthy builds are effective, and choosing a part of the map to control works well—you can avoid getting shot from a respawning foe from behind if you are diligent about locking down one area of the level.
On the other hand, another option is to constantly patrol around the outer edges of the map—keep moving and you can outpace anyone spawning or moving behind you.
Try to avoid the center of the map or any open space with a lot of line of sight. You become an easy target in such places.
Team Deathmatch
Straight up Team Deathmatch on all maps. Use teamwork to kill enemy players and reach the score limit.
Classic team combat, TDM emphasizes performance—you need to maintain a positive kill/death ratio to keep your team in the lead.
Pay careful attention to the radar, and move with your team. Because of the free flowing nature of TDM combat, it’s not uncommon for spawns to flip back and forth throughout a match as players move around the level.
If you’re isolated from your team, it’s very possible to have multiple enemies respawn nearby—stay alert if you’re away from your team!
Try to fight near hotspots, but avoid rushing in alone unless you’re outfitted with a full stealth build. Staying alive is even more important than scoring kills, as going negative in k/d hurts your team’s chances of winning, and doubly helps the enemy team with score and scorestreaks to amplify their advantage.
Kill Confirmed
Team Deathmatch with a twist. Collect enemy dogtags to score for your team.
Kill Confirmed plays close to TDM, but each time a player dies in KC, they drop a dogtag. Pick up enemy tags to ‘confirm’ the kill, giving bonus score. Pick up friendly tags to ‘deny’ the kill, saving some of the lost score.
Because tags must be picked up to get most of the points in a match, CQC builds have a slight edge over long range builds that hang back. Playing a fast and aggressive close range build with a Shotgun or SMG can rack up a lot of points in typical KC matches.
That doesn’t mean LMG or Sniper users who prefer to hang back are useless, of course—you can use tags in the open to bait enemy players into picking them up, easily picking them off if they expose themselves. Likewise, aggressive teammates can often scoop up dropped tags.
Control Modes
Focused objective play. Secure the critical targets and hold them to win.
Domination
Three zones must be captured. Your team gets points for having control of a zone. The more zones your team holds, the more points you gain.
A classic Call of Duty mode, Domination requires that you capture and hold three points labelled ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’. Typically, holding two of these points (A and B or B and C) and pinning the enemy at the third point is the path to victory. As a result, the B point on most maps is heavily contested.
If you plan on regularly going for captures, bring defensive loadouts with Flak Jacket, Smoke grenades, Trophy Systems, defensive scorestreaks, and the like.
On the other hand, if you plan to clear points, bring an abundance of explosives or strong long range weaponry to clear off enemies and secure the area.
It’s also quite possible to play aggressively in the enemy backline between their ‘home’ point and the B flag, just be aware of where enemies are likely to spawn, and where they are moving to reach the middle of the map to avoid getting ambushed.
Hardpoint
A neutral hardpoint to capture is marked in the level. Capture and hold it to gain points.
Hardpoint places a control zone on the map that can be claimed by having a friendly player inside the zone with no enemies present. If a friendly and an enemy are inside, the zone is contested, and neither team scores until it is cleared.
The Hardpoint rotates around the map periodically, so after you secure a point, moving to the next one and setting up a strong defense is an important tactic. It’s also vital to learn when to give up on pushing a Hardpoint that’s already lost and getting to the next location before the enemy team so you can secure the best cover.
Hardpoints are often subject to heavy explosive bombardment and the focus of offensive scorestreak targeting, so bring defensive loadouts if you plan on securing them, or an offensive loadout of your own if you need to clear them.
Bomb Modes
Plant, defuse, guard, and assault, bomb modes test your team coordination.
Demolition
Teams alternate in attacking and defending two bomb sites. The attacking team must destroy bomb sites to win.
Teams are split into offense and defense, with the offense striving to detonate the bomb sites and the defense out to stop them.
There are two bomb sites that must be destroyed by planting a bomb and holding the site until it detonates. All players on the offensive side have bombs, so any player can plant.
Once both bomb sites are blown (or defended), the teams switch and play a second round. If the score is tied, a sudden death round is played with a single bomb site that either team can destroy to win.
Search & Destroy
Defend and destroy the objective. No respawning.
Search & Destroy is the tactical bomb mode, with no respawns in each round, so gung-ho play is extremely risky. Only one player carries the bomb, and if the defenders defuse it, they win immediately.
It’s also quite common to finish rounds by simply eliminating the other team, rather than blowing a target. Unlike in demo, a successful detonation at either site is a win, and the defuse requires disarming in the same spot the bomb was planted.
It is common to use a plant as bait to draw out any remaining defenders, and also effective to have one or more players make a lot of noise at one site while the bomber sneaks a plant at the other site.
Objective Modes
Specific tasks must be completed to achieve victory. Focus on the goals to win!
Safeguard
Escort the robot the enemy base.
New in Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Safeguard challenges each team in turn to escort a friendly robot as it marches toward the enemy base.
The robot can be destroyed temporarily, halting its progress, but it repairs, reboots, and continues marching after a short delay. Because the robot follows a fixed path through the map, it’s possible to learn its routes and set up defenses on favorable terrain when playing defense.
Likewise, on offense, knowing where defenders are likely to be lurking and setting out to flank them before they can get entrenched is vital.
Expect constant firefights around the robot itself, and be wary of moving out in the open near it. There are always likely to be hostiles either nearby, or lying in wait as the robot moves.
Uplink
Throw or carry the Satellite Drone to the Uplink Station.
Brought over from Advanced Warfare, Uplink challenges both teams to acquire the single satellite drone from the center of the map, and then pass or run the drone to the enemy Uplink Station to score.
You can score in Uplink by either throwing the drone, or jumping it in for bonus score. The player with the drone gains bonus armor, and an instantly lethal melee attack. Because you can pass the drone to any player, you can even ‘disarm’ an enemy by tossing the drone at them—a risky surprise!
Capture the Flag
Get the enemy flag and return it to yours to capture it.
Both teams have a flag that must be defended and an enemy flag that must be captured. You can score only if your own flag is at base, so if both flags are taken, neither team can score until a carrier is defeated.
Capture the Flag demands teamwork on offense and defense, as a few players staying back to defend the flag can aim for high end scorestreaks and coordinating offensive scorestreak usage with flag runners is vital for breaking defensive locks.
Speedy and stealthy builds are recommended for flag running, while builds with defensive equipment and perks and longer range weapons work well for defense.