Hi everyone! This post is an announcement that the rules for Blacks Ops III have been significantly overhauled to reflect the needs and desires of the Zombies speedrunning community and further modernize the rules to modern Zombies speedrunning standards. The new rules are available for viewing under Game Rules. The category rules largely remain unchanged but were updated to align with the Game Rules.

Please read over the new rules before submitting a run as these rules will be applied to all new run submissions effective today, 2026-01-25.

The Rules Overhaul

Last week, a vote was put out in the CoD Zombies Speedrunning Discord to accept or reject the rules you now see on SRC. That vote passed with 70% in favour of accepting those rules as the new rules for Blacks Ops III Zombies. In addition, the following items were voted on:

1. Whether the Master Spawner Exploit should be banned in Round Speedruns (90% voted in favour of banning the exploit)
2. Whether the Super EE should be moved from the Category Extensions to the main BO3 Board. (90% voted in favour of moving the Super EE to the main board)
3. Whether Self Medication and Near Death Experience should be banned. (90% voted against banning SM and NDE)
4. If the Solo EE mod should be allowed or not. (100% voted in favour of allowing the Solo EE Mod)
5. If All Gums/Classic Gums should be renamed to Megas and Classics. (80% voted in favour of the renaming)
6. If the less popular maps should be hidden from view by default. (80% voted against hiding the less popular maps)

As a result, the rules and the boards were updated based on the results of this poll. If you would like to join us in future rules votes, for both BO3 and other Zombies games, please feel free to join our Discord

Timing for Ascension

One of the questions in the poll asked whether or not Ascension should start on fade-in or player movement. The result of this vote ended in a 50-50 tie. To break this tie, a staff vote was conducted which also resulted in a 4-4 tie. A tie-breaking vote was cast earlier today which kept the timing for Ascension at fade-in, as it currently stands. This may be revisited in the future.

Some runs are currently timed on player movement and not on fade-in. Over the next week, we will be going through the Ascension boards and adjusting the time of runs to account for fade-in if the run's time did not already take into account fade-in and the landing cutscene into its timing.

In-Game Time (IGT) is the Primary Timing Method

In the initial vote, timing was originally proposed to be done through Real-Time Attack (RTA). However, after receiving feedback in numerous votes, timing was changed to In-Game Timing (IGT). This means that if the game is paused, then your timing will also pause. If your run was timed in RTA timing, in that time was added onto your run because you paused the game, please message me on SRC and I can adjust your time to reflect IGT timing.

Proof of Resets is Now Required for Top 3 Submissions

As of today, if your run places in a top 3 position, you are required to provide video proof of resets in addition to video footage of your run. Proof of resets allows the moderation team to determine whether or not the game has any injections, RNG modifications, or scripts running and is one of the primary method of anti-cheat detection. Proof of resets can either be a full-length video of your entire game play session, or showing a reasonable amount of resets directly before your run that you are submitting. If you streamed your run, you do not need to provide proof of resets but may be asked for them regardless depending on the circumstances surrounding your run. For more information, please consult the game rules.

Game Audio is Now Required

As part of the rules vote, game audio is now required in your videos for your run to be verified. In addition, you are not allowed to modify your game audio in any way. This includes custom or muted sounds.

The Super Easter Egg is Now on the Main Board

The Super Easter Egg is now available on the main BO3 board as a result of the community rules vote. This means you no longer have to go to the category extensions page to submit or view a Super EE run. The category extensions board for the BO3 Super EE is being retired, so please do not submit runs there anymore, as they will be rejected. Current runs on the category extensions board for the Super EE will be moved to the Super EE category on the main board.

Additional Changes

In addition to the changes from the vote, the following changes have been made:

1. The old theme has been retired and replaced with a new one.
2. All Easter Egg categories have been renamed to simply say "Easter Egg" instead of their achievement name.
3. Any% has been renamed to Any% EE to avoid confusion with other categories that do not have an Any% variant.
4. The category rules have been updated to reflect the new Game Rules.
5. Consumables has been renamed to Gobblegum Loadout.
6. All Gums has been renamed to Megas.
7. Classic Gums has been renamed to Classics.
8. Shadowman Round Skipping is now allowed in any category except for Round Speedruns.

Closing Notes

Thank you everyone for being a part of this community, and thank you to everyone who voted in the poll. We are proud to present these new rules and changes and usher in a major improvement for the Black Ops III Zombies board on SRC.

If you have any questions about these rules, please feel free to message myself, Fallnight, or Daven on SRC or on Discord, or join our discord and ask us there.

Thank you!