Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 - Ending Explained (by the level loading screen)
2,524Major Spoilers for Black Ops 3 and Black Ops 1
Black Ops 3 gives away the answer to its "mysterious" ending... right at the beginning of the game!
If you screenshot the scrolling text that appears before each level, it gives away a Viktor Reznov-sized plot twist that is hinted at throughout the game but never explicitly revealed, unlike the Reznov twist in Black Ops 1.
The scrolling text before each mission is a mission report by John Taylor detailing the events of that mission.
The big twist is......
Only the first mission, "Black Ops", actually takes place in real life. John Taylor's report notes that the sole survivor of Hendrick's team was brought in for Cyber surgery, but died on the operating table. Taylor tried to interface with the sole survivor's mind via their DNI units to guide them to recovery, but it ultimately didn't work. However, this allowed the sole survivor's mind to access Taylor's memories.
The rest of the game takes place inside the sole survivor's dying mind, as they re-live John Taylor's memories of his last mission prior to "Black Ops", in which Taylor's previous team members, led by Dylan Stone (from the Black Ops 3 comic book), defected to the CDF after discovering illegal activity by the CIA, and Taylor and Hendricks were forced to hunt them down and kill them. However, the sole survivor's mind changes the events slightly, so that Taylor and his new team take the place of Stone and the old team members as the villains. The sole survivor's mind also adds an entirely fictional evil A.I., Corvus, to serve as the main villain, while Stone's motives in real life were actually much more mundane (he was essentially just a regular Snowden/Manning whistleblower).
There are multiple hints in the game that reality is not as it should be, as well as that the later missions actually take place before the first mission of the game.
- On multiple occasions, the player acts as though they have lost their sense of time, being slightly confused as to where they are and how they got there. This occurs even before they are infected by Corvus.
- In the second level, a brief flash can be seen of 2 doctors pulling Taylor away from the player. This is a protesting Taylor been pulled away as the player crashes on the surgery table. This conversation can be seen in the scrolling text of the final mission; Taylor insists that the dying player is still alive and can be saved, and the doctors have to drag him away because he's causing a scene.
- Sarah Hall's death shows that a dying mind can experience events lasting several hours in the space of a few moments in real life. This is what is happening to the player.
- In the first mission, Hendricks gives Taylor a large amount of grief regarding the ease with which he kills people. An odd stance for a hardened Black Ops soldier to take. Hendricks' attitude stems from the fact that he and Taylor had to kill their former team members during their last mission together, something which Hendricks morally objected to.
- When you meet Lt. Khalil towards the end of the game, the player is the only person who acts as though you've all met before. For everyone else, it seems as though Khalil is meeting Hendricks and Kane for the first time.
- The events of the second-to-last mission are actually the "Cairo Uprising" mentioned several times in the first mission, in which Lt. Khalil becomes a hero then is captured by the NRC. This is also why Khalil personally knows Hendricks and Taylor in the first mission.
- Rachel Kane leaving the player near the end of the game is actually a memory of her breaking up with Taylor over his decision to join the Cyber Soldier program. The bandana she leaves by the player's hospital bed is being worn by Taylor in the first mission, because she actually gave it to Taylor. The same bandana is also seen by the player's bed as early as the end of the second mission, showing that even those events are taking place in the player's head rather than real life.
- The final mission makes little sense in that the player has gone from seriously injured in a hospital bed to full fighting shape in the time it took Hendricks to ride a plane from Egypt to Switzerland. Rachel, who made a big deal of leaving the player, is suddenly fighting by their side again. The final mission isn't based on any "real" mission that John Taylor went on; rather, it's a pure fiction created by the player's mind to achieve closure. This is also why it's the most disjointed and insane mission.
- Ultimately, the player identifies themselves as Taylor in the ending because they have spent the entire game re-living Taylor's memories.
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