50 Fun Facts About Call of Duty Zombies

Which 2008 Call of Duty game first hid Zombies as a bonus unlocked by finishing the campaign?

World at War shipped Zombies as an unadvertised extra because its makers doubted the publisher would accept something so odd. Once it caught on, it was unlocked for every player.

Which horror director stalks the film set as a zombie in the Zombies map Call of the Dead?

George A. Romero plays himself, kidnapped and turned undead while shooting a film at a remote Siberian outpost. The map's name salutes his own Dead series of zombie films.

In which building do Kennedy, Nixon, Castro and McNamara fight the undead in the Zombies map Five?

The Pentagon is where the four are negotiating after the Cuban Missile Crisis when the outbreak forces them to take up arms. Five was one of two maps that shipped with Black Ops.

Which island prison do four mobsters try to escape in the Zombies map Mob of the Dead?

Alcatraz holds the four gangsters on New Year's Eve 1933, when they try to fly out on a makeshift airplane. They get airborne, only to crash-land at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Which real ocean liner is overrun by undead passengers in the Zombies map Voyage of Despair?

Titanic is the stage: a stolen artifact turns the passengers and crew into zombies just as the liner strikes the iceberg. The map launched with Black Ops 4.

Which heavy metal band wrote the song Not Ready to Die for the Zombies map Call of the Dead?

Avenged Sevenfold wrote it in four days between tours, basing the lyrics on the mode's lore because singer M. Shadows is a fan. Players trigger it as a hidden Easter egg.

Which famous Black Ops multiplayer map became a Zombies map bundled with Black Ops II's special editions?

Nuketown, a Nevada nuclear test site, is wiped out in the Zombies story by a missile fired from the Moon. The undead version was later made available to every player.

Which 1980s TV star turns up to help the trapped actors in the theme-park map Zombies in Spaceland?

David Hasselhoff, the Knight Rider star, is trapped in the film too and helps the four fend off the undead. The map belongs to Infinite Warfare, whose Zombies story unfolds inside horror films.

In Call of Duty Zombies, what do players call the chest that hands out a randomly selected weapon?

The Mystery Box can also produce wonder weapons, powerful fictional guns unique to Zombies mode. Players who want one particular gun buy it from a chalk outline on a wall instead.

Which Perk-a-Cola in Call of Duty Zombies increases the health of the player who drinks it?

Juggernog is the health perk, one of the soda-themed upgrades players buy from machines scattered around each map. Perk-a-Colas arrived with the mode's first downloadable map.

Which Activision studio invented Zombies mode while behind schedule on a 2008 Call of Duty game?

Treyarch's studio head first tried to shut the side project down, then played it and decided it had to be finished. It was never formally pitched; word simply spread through the team.

Which weapon from the 2008 debut of Call of Duty Zombies was the mode's first wonder weapon?

The Ray Gun began a line of powerful fictional weapons found only in Zombies. Later wonder weapons were often tied to a single map and earned by building them or finishing quests.

Which machine, introduced in the factory map Der Riese, lets Zombies players upgrade their weapons?

Pack-a-Punch debuted in Der Riese, a Breslau factory where a strange substance is built into teleporters and other devices. The machine became a fixture of most later versions of the mode.

Which map, set in a German bunker, was the only Zombies map when the mode launched in 2008?

Nacht der Untoten, German for Night of the Undead, started automatically once a player finished the final campaign mission. Three more maps followed as downloadable content.

Which actor voices failing magician Nero Blackstone in the Zombies map Shadows of Evil?

Jeff Goldblum heads a noir cast with Heather Graham as a burlesque dancer, Ron Perlman as a boxer and Neal McDonough as a corrupt cop. The four are tricked into freeing an ancient beast.

Which US site is the starting point of the Zombies map Moon, before a teleporter trip into space?

Area 51 is where the crew arrive before the base's teleporter sends them to a research station on the lunar surface. Once there, players and zombies alike fight in low gravity.

Which rapper's song Won't Back Down can be triggered as an Easter egg in the Zombies map Five?

Eminem's track, which features Pink, also plays over the end credits of Black Ops. Most Zombies maps hide a secret song that players unlock by hunting for Easter eggs.

Which actress stars beside Danny Trejo and Robert Englund in the Zombies map Call of the Dead?

Sarah Michelle Gellar, Trejo, Englund and Michael Rooker all play themselves as actors whose film shoot is overrun. Celebrity casts returned in several later Zombies maps.

Which Call of Duty game gave its undead powered exoskeletons in a mode called Exo Zombies?

Advanced Warfare delivered Exo Zombies across its four DLC packs, starting with a map called Outbreak. Raven Software, not lead developer Sledgehammer Games, built the mode.

Which actor voices the mobster Billy Handsome in the Zombies map Mob of the Dead?

Ray Liotta voices Billy beside Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen and Joe Pantoliano as four inmates jailed during the Great Depression. One of them, Weasel, keeps a journal of every failed breakout.

Which asylum map, the first Zombies DLC map, introduced Perk-a-Colas, traps and a power switch?

Verrückt, German for crazy, is built on the multiplayer map Asylum, and switching on its generator reunites the two halves of the map. Its traps are modelled on electro-shock therapy.

What does Shi No Numa, the Zombies map that introduced Richtofen's crew, mean in Japanese?

Swamp of Death fits a map set in misty swampland surrounded by jungle. It also added flaming hellhounds and the Wunderwaffe DG-2.

What does Der Riese, the Zombies factory map remade for Black Ops III, mean in English?

The Giant is both the translation and the name of the remake, a Collector's Edition bonus map starring the four original heroes. The first version closed out the 2008 game's run of Zombies maps.

Which substance, processed at the Der Riese factory, reanimates dead cells in the Zombies story?

Element 115 is the story's cause of the undead and the material used to build its teleporters. In Black Ops II, missiles loaded with it are fired from the Moon at Earth.

Which German research body builds massive robots and elemental staffs in the Zombies map Origins?

Group 935 built the machines to aid Germany's war effort, then dug into an ancient tomb in 1918 and unleashed the first known zombie outbreak in history. Its outposts stretch from Siberia to the Moon.

Which girl, trapped in a pyramid device on the Moon, unleashes the undead in the Zombies story?

Samantha Maxis swore vengeance on her father's colleagues after watching him die, sending zombies after them across time and space. A soul swap with Richtofen later hands him control of the horde.

Which US Marine fights beside Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen in the original Zombies crew?

Tank Dempsey completes a crew drawn from four armies: American, Soviet, Japanese and German. The four debuted together in the map Shi No Numa.

Which voice actor plays Edward Richtofen, the German doctor of the original Zombies crew?

Nolan North voices Richtofen throughout the Black Ops games and doubles as Doctor Gersh, a scientist stuck in ethereal form in the map Ascension.

Kino der Toten, a launch map for Black Ops Zombies, is set in an abandoned theatre in which city?

Berlin in the 1960s is where the crew land after overloading a teleporter at the Der Riese factory and jumping forward in time. The theatre hides a secret research facility.

Which top-down Zombies spin-off is unlocked by typing a code into the Black Ops main-menu terminal?

Dead Ops Arcade opens when a player types DOA at the terminal, revealing a retro twin-stick shooter with extra lives and zombie bosses. A sequel followed in Black Ops III.

In the Zombies map TranZit, what vehicle with a robotic driver carries survivors around the map?

A bus crosses the post-apocalyptic wasteland with four new survivors aboard: Stuhlinger, Misty, Marlton and Russman. TranZit launched with Black Ops II as a sprawling map built for exploring.

The Zombies map Die Rise takes place across two crumbling skyscrapers in the ruins of which city?

Shanghai is where the Black Ops II survivors ride elevators between the floors of two half-destroyed towers. There they learn of The Flesh, a cult that chooses to eat zombie meat.

In Mob of the Dead, where do the four Zombies mobsters learn they are really trapped?

Purgatory is the truth: the escape never happened, and the cycle repeats as punishment for the inmates' sins. It breaks only if Weasel, whom the other three once murdered, survives.

Which Black Ops II Zombies mode sets two teams of four against each other and the undead?

Grief was the first Zombies mode for eight players, as earlier games supported only four online. The same game added Turned, where one human tries to outlast three player-controlled zombies.

Which single-use items, new in Black Ops III Zombies, grant temporary bonuses when consumed?

GobbleGums come out of a gumball machine one at a time. The idea spread: Infinite Warfare answered with Fate and Fortune Cards, and Black Ops 4 with Elixirs.

Shadows of Evil, the noir launch map of Black Ops III Zombies, is set in which fictional place?

Morg City in 1944 is where the Shadowman tricks a dancer, a cop, a boxer and a magician into opening a rift. They are helped by the Keepers, an otherworldly order guarding a powerful artifact.

The Zombies map Gorod Krovi fills which war-torn Soviet city with fire-breathing dragons?

Stalingrad in 1945 is the battleground: the Soviets field robots built from stolen German technology while Germany unleashes resurrected dragons. The crew must destroy the alpha dragon.

Which British actor voices Doctor Monty, the omnipotent being of the Black Ops III Zombies story?

Malcolm McDowell plays Monty, who watches the crew from the realm of Agartha before announcing himself to them. By Black Ops 4 the heroes are plotting to defeat him.

Der Eisendrache, a castle map in Black Ops III Zombies, is a fortress in which European country?

Austria hosts the fortress, where Richtofen overrides the castle's defence system and fires a barrage of missiles that destroys the Moon. The map arrived in Awakening, the game's first DLC release.

Which Zombies storyline starring Scarlett Rhodes did Black Ops 4 launch alongside the Aether saga?

Chaos follows a new cast of four: an adventurer, a former legionnaire, a spy and a chemist. It made Black Ops 4 the first game with two separate Zombies storylines.

Which Call of Duty game soft-rebooted the Zombies story in a new dimension called the Dark Aether?

Black Ops Cold War launched with a single map, Die Maschine, and reworked core mechanics so that perks and weapon upgrades became tier-based. Players could also bring their own customised weapon into a match.

Which CIA-backed team do Zombies players join to oppose the Soviet-led Omega Group?

Requiem sends a four-person strike team into outbreak zones, starting in 1983 at an old nuclear research facility in Poland. Its senior staff include Grigori Weaver, an operative from the first Black Ops campaign.

The open-world Zombies mode Outbreak sends squads across which Russian mountain range?

The Ural Mountains hold the largest outbreak zones, so the heroes mount a huge operation there to catch up with their Soviet rivals. The mode borrows mechanics from Warzone.

Which 2021 Call of Duty game launched Zombies without the traditional round-based format?

Vanguard swapped rounds for objectives and shipped without Easter eggs or story quests. A round-based map arrived later as a remake of Shi No Numa.

Black Ops 6 brought back round-based Zombies with two launch maps: Terminus and which other?

Liberty Falls and Terminus marked a return to rounds after two games that tried objectives and an open-ended extraction format instead. Four more maps followed after launch.

Which actor plays Oz, the janitor who becomes the monstrous final villain of Exo Zombies?

John Malkovich begins as one of four trapped employees beside Rose McGowan, Jon Bernthal and Bill Paxton. His character is executed, reanimates with his intelligence intact and turns on the rest.

Which Scottish actor voices art thief Drostan Hynd in the Nazi Zombies mode of Call of Duty: WWII?

David Tennant plays a history professor turned art thief, alongside Ving Rhames, Katheryn Winnick and Élodie Yung. Their team hunts relics the Third Reich stole in its bid to raise an undead army.

Which publisher released the Call of Duty: Zombies comic book series written by Justin Jordan?

Dark Horse Comics began the series in 2016 with a story loosely based on the events of Black Ops II Zombies. It reunites the four TranZit survivors on a hunt for an artifact.

In the Zombies map Ancient Evil, the Oracle of Delphi is really which mythical figure in disguise?

Medusa poses as the Oracle to guide the heroes, and is exposed when they find her other visitors petrified. The same map ends in a battle with Perseus and his winged steed Pegasus.

In the Nazi Zombies story of Call of Duty: WWII, the heroes hunt pieces of which emperor's sword?

Barbarossa's sword is found as a hilt, a pommel and a blade, and the team must reassemble it at a legendary forge in Antarctica. A possessed ally warns them to prevent the Emperor's return.