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So we all know Black Ops 3 has such a mind-bending storyline with a confusing ending to boot.
I, for one, find it to be one of the greatest Call of Duty campaigns yet, if not THE best for that very reason.
And I'm sure many of us, by this point, have either discovered or read online, a twist that the
player character's adventures is all a dying dream caused by complications in his cyber soldier surgery,
causing him to relive the experiences of John Taylor but twisted with a plot to save the world from a sentient
AI accidentally birthed from the illegal DNI experiments in Singapore, culminating in the epilogue that
leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
Yesterday, I was idly browsing through the Call of Duty wiki and found something interesting that actually
put a new twist into this revelation. http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Player_(Black_Ops_III)
This just blows my mind and I really hope this would be the canon ending in the Black Ops timeline.
What do you guys think?
So we all know Black Ops 3 has such a mind-bending storyline with a confusing ending to boot.
I, for one, find it to be one of the greatest Call of Duty campaigns yet, if not THE best for that very reason.
And I'm sure many of us, by this point, have either discovered or read online, a twist that the
player character's adventures is all a dying dream caused by complications in his cyber soldier surgery,
causing him to relive the experiences of John Taylor but twisted with a plot to save the world from a sentient
AI accidentally birthed from the illegal DNI experiments in Singapore, culminating in the epilogue that
leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
Yesterday, I was idly browsing through the Call of Duty wiki and found something interesting that actually
put a new twist into this revelation. http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Player_(Black_Ops_III)
According to what I digged up, how it goes is that, while the Player does go through a dying dream that places himself in Taylor's shoes of hunting down Dylan Stone, his death somehow gave birth to Corvus who infected Taylor's DNI when he interfaced with him [the Player] in a last ditch attempt to save his life. At the same time, the Player's consciousness was transferred to Taylor's mind through the interface.
The dream itself is actually a simulation Corvus created from Taylor's memories in order to investigate his own origins and to do that, he spread himself into the DNI's of Maretti, Diaz and Hall, taking control of their minds and putting them and Taylor into the roles of Dylan and his team. As for Hendricks, the Hendricks accompanying the Player is actually a simulation himself as opposed to the real Hendricks who didn't undergo any augmentation.
Therefore Taylor's squad actually was killed throughout the simulation but Taylor figured out Corvus's control over them as well as the fact he's reliving his own experiences, as foreshadowed by his cryptic messages to the player.
And somehow, the simulation itself blends with the real world in that Hendricks (the real one) and Kane discover something wrong with Taylor and try to talk to him, only for Taylor to respond by echoing Corvus's words (Remember their brief conversation in the mission "Lotus Towers". Distraught with Taylor seemingly gone insane as well as the guilt and anger from his hunt for Dylan getting the better of him, Hendricks goes off to commit a terrorist attack in Zurich, killing the Coalescence staff and holding Sebastian Kruger hostage to try and threaten him to own up for his illegal DNI experiments.
But before I go too far ahead, when Taylor was "killed" by the false Hendricks, it was supposedly his consciousness that was killed as, later on, back in the real world the Player takes control of his physical body during the final mission. As for Rachel Kane, while she is present as part of the simulation, he real counterpart somehow bleeds in to tell Taylor about how Corvus has infected him - her words only reaching out to the player. Basically, she thinks she's talking to Taylor as the Player's in control of his body.
After the simulation ended at the point where Taylor and Hendricks killed Dylan Stone at the Lotus Towers, back in the real world Kane and the Player decide to destroy Corvus by purging the DNI system at the Coalescence building in Zurich at the cost of erasing the Player's mind. The robotic attack on the populace, along with him trapping and killing Kane with the Nova 6 gas, was actually Corvus's attempt to stop the two from purging it and Hendricks had nothing to do with it.
When the Player confronts Hendricks, Corvus distorted his perception, making him think Hendricks is still a cyborg and infected with Corvus like he was in the dream world, tricking the Player into killing him. When the player, with the help of Taylor's consciousness who survived through a DNI glitch, purge Corvus from the system, they both realize their minds are shared within Taylor's body so before the purging is complete, just as the ZSF soldier asks the Player/Taylor his name, the Player replies with Taylor's name before the screen goes black - signifying that the Player is giving Taylor back control of his body, allowing himself to be erased.
The dream itself is actually a simulation Corvus created from Taylor's memories in order to investigate his own origins and to do that, he spread himself into the DNI's of Maretti, Diaz and Hall, taking control of their minds and putting them and Taylor into the roles of Dylan and his team. As for Hendricks, the Hendricks accompanying the Player is actually a simulation himself as opposed to the real Hendricks who didn't undergo any augmentation.
Therefore Taylor's squad actually was killed throughout the simulation but Taylor figured out Corvus's control over them as well as the fact he's reliving his own experiences, as foreshadowed by his cryptic messages to the player.
And somehow, the simulation itself blends with the real world in that Hendricks (the real one) and Kane discover something wrong with Taylor and try to talk to him, only for Taylor to respond by echoing Corvus's words (Remember their brief conversation in the mission "Lotus Towers". Distraught with Taylor seemingly gone insane as well as the guilt and anger from his hunt for Dylan getting the better of him, Hendricks goes off to commit a terrorist attack in Zurich, killing the Coalescence staff and holding Sebastian Kruger hostage to try and threaten him to own up for his illegal DNI experiments.
But before I go too far ahead, when Taylor was "killed" by the false Hendricks, it was supposedly his consciousness that was killed as, later on, back in the real world the Player takes control of his physical body during the final mission. As for Rachel Kane, while she is present as part of the simulation, he real counterpart somehow bleeds in to tell Taylor about how Corvus has infected him - her words only reaching out to the player. Basically, she thinks she's talking to Taylor as the Player's in control of his body.
After the simulation ended at the point where Taylor and Hendricks killed Dylan Stone at the Lotus Towers, back in the real world Kane and the Player decide to destroy Corvus by purging the DNI system at the Coalescence building in Zurich at the cost of erasing the Player's mind. The robotic attack on the populace, along with him trapping and killing Kane with the Nova 6 gas, was actually Corvus's attempt to stop the two from purging it and Hendricks had nothing to do with it.
When the Player confronts Hendricks, Corvus distorted his perception, making him think Hendricks is still a cyborg and infected with Corvus like he was in the dream world, tricking the Player into killing him. When the player, with the help of Taylor's consciousness who survived through a DNI glitch, purge Corvus from the system, they both realize their minds are shared within Taylor's body so before the purging is complete, just as the ZSF soldier asks the Player/Taylor his name, the Player replies with Taylor's name before the screen goes black - signifying that the Player is giving Taylor back control of his body, allowing himself to be erased.
This just blows my mind and I really hope this would be the canon ending in the Black Ops timeline.
What do you guys think?
This article gives some nice new insights in the possible explanations of the ending.
