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The Day I Lost My Co-Op Partner to the Grind: Getting wedgeDonovan Addicted to Dead Ops Arcade 3

We’ve all been there. You boot up Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War intending to hit the standard multiplayer queues or run some classic round-based Die Maschine. But then, you take a little detour. You drag a buddy into a mode they’ve historically ignored, and suddenly, it’s 3:00 AM, your eyes are bloodshot, and they are screaming about a giant silverback gorilla stealing their chickens.

That is exactly what happened when I loaded up some Xbox gameplay and introduced wedgeDonovan to Dead Ops Arcade 3: Rise of the Mamaback.

Check out how a casual “just one match” turned into a full-blown twin-stick shooter obsession.

“What Even Is This?” (The Hook)

wedgeDonovan is a traditionalist. He likes his first-person perspective, his carefully curated loadouts, and his standard perk rotations. So, when the screen shifted to a top-down, retro-inspired twin-stick shooter, the skepticism was palpable over the mic.

“Are we playing a mobile game inside CoD?” — wedgeDonovan, moments before disaster.

We dropped into The Island (Rounds 1-4). At first, he was just casually firing his default pistol, grabbing gems, and wondering why I was so focused on collecting keys. But the second he picked up his first temporary power-up weapon—a high-powered Boxing Glove—and started clearing hordes with a spinning blade of death, something clicked. The retro sound effects and the arcade-style multiplier started doing their subliminal work.

The Turning Point: Entering ‘The Wild’

If the arcade arenas didn’t fully convert him, The Wild did. For those who haven’t deep-dived into DOA3, after Round 4, the Mamaback wrecks your portal, and you are dropped into an expansive, open-world-lite jungle area.

This is where the gameplay shifted from a casual retro throwback to intense tactical coordination. We started hunting down:

• Deadly Dungeons: Venturing into dark crypts for massive loot hauls.

• The Room of Fate: Helping wedgeDonovan secure his permanent Fate Stone upgrade. When he realized his operator got a permanent buff for the rest of the run, the casual gamer vanished. The sweaty, min-maxing completionist took over.

By the time we hit the Junkyard rounds and had to deal with armored Marauders, wedgeDonovan was calling out spawn pods like a pro and aggressively hoarding speed boosts.

The Aftermath: No Going Back

We didn’t quite make it to the 64-round Mamaback boss fight on our first try, but the damage was done. As soon as we hit the “Game Over” screen, there was no request to go back to standard Multiplayer or Warzone. Just a brief silence, followed by: “So… what’s the strategy for the Bloodpool rounds? Let’s go again.”

Dead Ops Arcade 3 remains one of the most underrated, robust, and brilliantly addictive bonus modes Treyarch ever built. If you have a friend who hasn’t given it a fair shake, load it up on your Xbox, drag them into the lobbies, and watch the addiction take hold in real-time.