The player can die from one hit from all zombies, three hits from Hellhounds and explosives or instantly from other contextual factors such as Bulls or Electric Spikes. The player begins the game with three lives and once the player loses all of their lives the game is over (though there are ways to gain extra lives). The bigger the gem, the bigger the multiplier boost.

Gems are especially useful in filling the multiplier bar but are uncommon. This score multiplier is capped at 9 and reset upon death.

When this bar fills up, the player's score multiplier goes up by one. Throughout the levels, the player will also be required to pick up treasure (which is marked by a gold or silver tint) to fill a bar at the top of the screen. The player can also pick up a large number of weapons and power-ups in order to assist them throughout the levels. Ammo is of no concern, as the player's main weapon has unlimited ammo and never needs to be reloaded. It contains many references to the zombie mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: World at War however, the gameplay has almost nothing in common. Dead Ops Arcade is a twin-stick top-down shooter, and, similar to all other zombie levels, its objective is to survive for as many rounds as possible against many waves of increasingly difficult zombies.

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