Well there goes my track record of trying to explain what the hell happens in these maps. Call of the Dead is a massive step forward for the franchise, Treyarch even said it was a “very special creation” for Zombies. Firstly it includes several famous voices playing four new characters (including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund, Danny Trejo, and Michael Rooker). Another celebrity also makes an appearance, but as a Zombie, ironically George A. Romero is our worst zombie nightmare as the director wades out of the ocean ready to thwack you with an electrified camera and tripod. The famed zombie director will hunt you from Dawn, throughout the Day and turn your Night into a living hell.

Additions: A new Perk arrives in this map, the Deadshot Daiquiri (basically making you more accurate) and several new exclusive weapons; the Scavenger (an explosive sniper) and the Wonder Weapon V-R11 (which turns Zombies back into humans creating a brief diversion). Which come in handy if you are thinking of taking the fight back to George, as he takes a beating, like seriously, he empties all weapons you have, and even that doesn’t kill him (he just slinks away and returns in a few rounds), however he does drop a perk and the Death Machine.

Easter Egg: The main Easter Egg follows the achievements; Ensemble Cast (for Co-Op) and Stand in (for single player). This all revolves around the Lighthouse area of the map next to a sealed door, where you will hear people talking (the original 4 characters).

-Firstly grab the fuse from the room just above the sealed door. Return it to the original characters and place the fuse in fuse box and knife the door to continue.

-Blow up 4 generators that have a red glow, they can be found in the following location; across from the sealed door with the original characters, near Stamin-Up head to the left hand window, look out of the map to see the Generator, over the railing of the ship around Double Tap, and between the second ship and spawn area look to the right and amongst the ice should be the last generator. To blow them up simply get a grenade or explosive to land on the generator. Head back to the sealed door and knife it to start the next sequence

-[Co-op only] Find Nikolai’s vodka, in several locations there will be a frozen bottle of Vodka, simply knife it and have a player below it ready to catch. The locations can be; on the railing of the ship near the MP5k, on the bridge of the Power Switch ship between the ship and the cranes, on the outside stairs near the sealed main door, and sometimes above the MPL. Once collected, head to the sealed door and put the bottle in the tube to the left.

– [These next 4 steps can be done in any order] [Co-op only] There will be 4 radios hidden around the map that need to be activated in a certain order. The order and locations are; on a cabinet in the right-hand side of the room under the power room, next to Stamin-Up on a barrel in the right-hand corner of the room, in a container at the back of the second ship near the Zipline, under the steps behind the sealed door. Doing this correctly will cause the players to hear Beeping, similar to Morse code and a light can be seen flashing in the distance.

– [Co-op only] In the lighthouse will be 4 dials on each floor; a yellow, orange, blue, and purple dial. Turning one dial will change the numbers of several dials. This takes some time to work out but figure out how each dial moves the other dials, it helps to have people checking each dial as one person turns another dial. Then final numbers should be Yellow (top floor): 2, Orange: 7, Blue: 4, Purple (bottom floor): 6. A rough guide to turning the dials is; turn the purple dial to 6, turn the orange dial so that the blue dial move to 4, turn the yellow dial so that the orange dial is at 7, turn the yellow dial to 2 and then turn the purple dial the same number of times as you turned the yellow dial, finally turn the blue dial back to 4.

-Now go to the Power Room and move the steering wheel so the brown handle is pointing at 5 o’clock. Then to the right of the wheel are some levers, pull the lever closest to the wheel once and the furthest lever three times. A horn should sound and a submarine will surface.

-[Co-op only] There will be 4 horns around the map (they look like discs sticking out the ground), these must be played in a certain order. The locations in the specific order are; at the foot of the lighthouse near the water, at the end of the ice slide to the right in the water, at the foot of the lighthouse on the left near a building, after the ice slide behind a large rock in the centre. If all are done in the correct order and green light will shine up.

-For this step the V-R11 is needed. In the lighthouse will be a green beam that shines down the middle of the spiral staircase, shoot a zombie near the light with the V-R11. Once the zombie has turned to human form it will run into the light and start floating up the beam, kill the person before it reaches the top. Once this is done the Golden Rod will be dropped to the bottom of the beam.

-Return the Rod to the tube you placed the Vodka bottle. After a bit of dialogue knife the fuse box to fix it.

Note that the Golden Rod collected here will be necessary in both Shangri-La and Moon Easter Eggs

The Story: The four playable characters are actors and actresses who came to these abandoned Nazi ships to film a WWII zombie movie with George Romero. However George is taken into the water by actual Zombies and is enhanced by Element 115 to become the beast he is in the game. Whilst using the old WW2 weapons to fend off the Zombies the playable characters hear something in the lighthouse. This turns out to be the original crew who, mainly due to Richtofen’s persuasions, had used the Casimir Mechanism from Ascension to Teleport to a Siberian Group 935 Outpost in order to obtain the Golden Rod, however an error occurred and they were sent too far in the future where they were now trapped. From the hidden radios we learn that Richtofen has been experimenting on the main crew, N3WB (Takeo or “newb”), The Russian (Nikolai), a deceased unknown Mexican, and secretly on the little Girl (Samantha Maxis). Richtofen and Dr Maxis have already created the “Army” (zombies) without having perfected the mind-control, which they are now testing on living subjects. A spy (Dempsey) has been captured in Verrückt and replaces the Mexican subject. We discover that Verrückt occurred as part of a rescue operation for Dempsey by the Americans. A further message shows the beginning of Richtofen’s dissent and hatred of Dr Maxis, as he believes that Maxis is ignoring the mass producing of the Wunderwaffle to focus on another project. That this means he cannot be in control of Group 935. This hatred extends to Samantha Maxis as well, explaining the events found in the last Der Riese radio message. The Golden Rod is known as a Vril Generator, that helps process and conduct Vril energy, which Richtofen needs for some far-flung plan, probably to do with space and aliens (seeming as the Vril Generator/Golden Rod came from a UFO).

Join us next week for episode four, where we discover the lost city of Shangri La and unearth some disturbing truths.