Long before the days of Warzone dominating CoD, multiplayer, campaign, and Zombies shared a spotlight in classic series entries. And one of the well-known names in the Zombies community is Syndicate.
CoD Zombies boasts a passionate fan base, but it’s been years since the community saw a traditional experience they initially fell in love with. The popular game mode built a reputation on its round-based format, challenging a squad of up to four players to survive endless waves of zombies.
Killing zombies earned points that could be used to purchase doors to new areas of the map, weapons, or perks. Content creators made it their mission to survive as long as possible, and arguably no one reached higher heights in the scene on YouTube than Syndicate.
The British YouTuber is mainly known for his vlogs today, yet Syndicate burst onto the scene in the early 2010s by creating Minecraft and CoD Zombies content. And now, that rise to fame is under scrutiny.
Did Syndicate fake his CoD Zombies world record?
YouTuber Karl Jobst exposes cheaters buried in video game history and, on Dec. 19, he put the microscope on Syndicate for allegedly faking a CoD Blacks Ops Zombies world record.
In 2011, Syndicate released a series of videos detailing his journey to reaching round 115 on the Black Ops Zombies map Kino Der Toten. The final video has 14 million views and is the YouTuber’s third-most-watched video.
Jobst claims Syndicate used a mod to fabricate the run and shared evidence to back up the claim. Syndicate released a video covering rounds 68 to 69 and a second video reviewing round 71. Jobst claims the two videos are from different games spliced together. The YouTuber provided evidence exposing Syndicate using a different character in the second video because the hand model was different, and it’s impossible to switch characters in the middle of a game.
Syndicate posted on Twitter in 2021 to try to explain his side of the story, according to a screenshot in Jobst’s video. “My game crashed after the round 69 hype video posted so I had to redo the run so I picked up where I left off,” Syndicate said in March 2021. “I understand the confusion of me talking about the downs etc. but I literally picked up where I left off as if it was the same run.”
But Jobst doesn’t understand why Syndicate neglected to mention that in the second video, and instead pretended like it was the same run. As a result, Jobst believes Syndicate used a mod to skip to round 71, where the second video starts.
Additionally, Syndicate should have only been able to purchase three Quick Revive perks, but the machine remained after buying the third based on his description. This means Syndicate likely used one more Quick Revive than what should be possible on the run he described.
To hammer the point home, Jobst showed the Thundergun weapon has two rounds and 12 in reserve when purchased from a Mystery Box. But in the second video, Syndicate’s Thundergun has two rounds and 10 in reserve, which is the same amount you’d have when you give yourself the weapon using a mod command, according to Jobst.
At this time, it’s unclear if Syndicate’s world record run was faked but Jobst’s video definitely raises some questions about its validity. Syndicate has yet to respond to Jobst’s claims.
