Overview
Between 2016 and 2020, four separate custom Zombies maps were built in BO3 Mod Tools. They represent five years of learning level design, modding workflows, and game feel — from a first unfinished attempt through to a proper published release. All of it was self-taught: the BO3 Mod Tools documentation was sparse at launch, so most of the scripting knowledge came from reverse-engineering Treyarch's own maps and reading community-written references.
The Maps
The first map. Set in an underground facility. Never reached a complete state — the geometry was too ambitious for the level of tool familiarity at the time, and the project was abandoned before the layout was playable. Source files still exist.
A forest-themed map that reached a playable state before the hard drive containing the project was lost. No backup. This is the one that got away — the only map that was both complete and unrecoverable. Taught a specific lesson about version control that has not been forgotten.
The map that made it. Bar interior, custom zone layout, published on Steam Workshop, and featured by YouAlwaysWin (2.97M subscribers). The only map in this set with a public audience. See the full write-up →
A return to BO3 modding three years later. Reached a feature-complete state but was never published — by 2020 the BO3 custom map community had moved on significantly and the timing felt wrong. The map itself is complete and playable.
Challenges & Lessons
The four maps together map almost perfectly onto the progression of any early developer: over-ambitious first attempt, promising second attempt lost to poor backup habits, third attempt succeeding through constrained scope and better craft, fourth attempt complete but released too late. The scripting side — working in GSC, Treyarch's Quake-derived scripting language — had to be largely reverse-engineered from existing game files, since official tutorials didn't cover everything that was needed.