Tag der Toten — Black Ops 4 Zombies Easter Egg Guide

Flip the power switches at the Docks and the Bridge to energise the first sections and the lighthouse route. In the Lighthouse Approach cave there are three glowing blue rocks — shoot or melee one loose, pick it up, and carry it to the Hermit’s pulley at Lighthouse Level 4. Placing it makes the lighthouse beam sweep to a timed Pack-a-Punch location. The four normal machines sit at Lagoon (by the perk), Frozen Path (by the hole in the boat), the Boathouse path and the Beach spit; whichever the beam lights is the one you may use (5,000 points).

Tip: if PaP never appears, the blue rock was not delivered or the beam has already rotated — re-check the Hermit pulley and follow the current beam.

Find a crank and install it to re-tension each zipline, turning until it stops:

• Beach line — crank spawns on the Stern; install it in the Sun Deck box and wind it fully.
• Cargo Hold line — crank spawns on the Forecastle; install it in the Main Deck box and wind it fully.

With both lines moved, return to the Hermit and take the Zipline Handle. It opens the zipline route into the Group 935 Facility — go inside and switch on Human Infusion power.

Tip: if the Handle is not offered, one crank has not bottomed out — re-check the Sun Deck and Main Deck boxes until both fully stop.

Kill three flaming (fire) zombies and grab the part each drops — snowball headshots or the Tundragun make these fast. Craft only at the Gangway bench to build the Dynamite Bomb (needed to blow the Seal safe later).

Then complete any two of the scarecrow-style Challenge Totems — the two active ones are drawn from five sites (Frozen Crevasse, Forecastle, Beach, Lighthouse and Specimen Storage) and each is a three-tier set of objectives (kill counts, trap kills, headshots). Their challenges are randomised, so pick the two easiest for your loadout — and since the totems are this quest's biggest time sink, run the Dynamite, Music Box and Wunderwaffe builds concurrently while you clear them. Return to the Hermit to receive the four dials for Artifact Storage. (Clearing every totem also earns a free Thundergun — see side quests.)

Complete Forecastle totem challenges until you are given the “Find Cooking Ingredients” task, then:

• Shoot down an icicle in the Beach caves and carry it to the metal pot on the Forecastle; it melts into a key.
• Zipline to the Facility and use the key to open the Specimen Storage safe → take the Vril / Golden Rod.
• Score kills to fill the rod with souls until it is charged, then place it in the Hermit’s dumbwaiter at Level 4 — it returns a final crate key.
• Open the marked crate at Lighthouse Level 4 to claim the Wunderwaffe DG-Scharfschütze for free.

This electric “sniper” bolt is mandatory: it is the only thing that charges the battery generators in Step 8. It can also drop from the Mystery Box, but the free copy is reliable.

Collect the two keycards — one in Decontamination, one in Specimen Storage — and insert both into the Security Lobby processing machine; wait, then retrieve them. Slot a card on each side of the Human Infusion vault to trigger a lockdown; survive it, then take Samantha’s Music Box from the opened vault.

Solo vs co-op: the vault lockdown is fully solo-doable — train the room and keep both card slots covered; co-op simply splits the two sides. The Music Box is a fixed quest item (it occupies your equipment slot when deployed) and is required for every campfire charge.

Install the Hermit’s four dials on the Artifact Storage panels. Turn each one click at a time — when a dial reaches its correct position it gives a clear ding. Leave that dial immediately and move to the next. When all four are correct the Apothicon activates and will speak its riddles.

Tip: the correct positions are randomised per match — do not copy a video. If a dial will not ding, keep advancing one click at a time and never re-touch a dial that has already dinged.

Interact with the Apothicon and write down the exact riddle. Each riddle points to one object elsewhere on the map; fetch it and place it in the receptacle, waiting for the confirmation sound before the next. The set of three is drawn randomly from a large fixed table — trust the live quote, not an example. Common riddle → location pairings:

• “Where thirst is quenched” → a water vessel / drinking object at the Boathouse or Docks
• “Where power is first born” → the Docks / Bridge power machinery
• “Where the earth is torn” → the Facility excavation / Geological Processing drill area
• “Where the ship sleeps” → the Cargo Hold / ship interior
• “Where the dead are stored” → the Specimen Storage morgue shelves
• “Where the lighthouse sees” → the Lighthouse lens / upper levels

After the three offerings a clue points to a poster/board hiding a safe (known spots include Geological Processing and the Boathouse); melee it to expose the safe, detonate your Dynamite, and take the Seal of Duality. Install the Seal in Artifact Storage and shoot the large Apothicon blood orb above it — three smaller orbs scatter across the map. For each one: hit it with a snowball to freeze it blue, then shoot it from the correct side so it travels back toward Artifact Storage. When all three return, carry the Seal to the Sunken Path campfire, deploy Samantha’s Music Box into the fire, defend until the charge cue, and retrieve the Seal.

• Orb 1 — freeze with a snowball first, then shoot toward Artifact Storage
• Orb 2 — if it stalls short, re-freeze and shoot again from the side that pushes it home
• Orb 3 — repeat until all three seat back on the Seal (listen for the completion cue)

Collect the pair of soapstones from the Hermit. Heat one on the Boathouse scorch marks using the Lighthouse fire trap; freeze the other under the Decontamination ice trap. Carry the hot stone on a completely dry route (any water contact fails it) to Human Infusion, bring the frozen stone too, and combine them into the elemental fuse. Install the fuse in the Lighthouse Station to open the electrical stage. Now use the Wunderwaffe DG-Scharfschütze to electrify the two red batteries, then at each of the three generators kill the Electricity Zombies inside the marked zone until it completes. Open the newly powered door for the Elemental Shard.

Tip (kill-credit): a generator only advances on electric zombies killed inside its ring — normal kills or kills outside the zone do nothing. If a stone fails, reheat/refreeze and re-run the dry route.

Run the whole Seal charge again: place the Seal (now with the Shard) in Artifact Storage, shoot the large orb, freeze and return all three small orbs, then charge at the Sunken Path campfire with the Music Box. When the Seal is charged, give it to the Hermit — this starts the lighthouse lockdown.

Point of no return for shopping: once you hand over the Seal, normal Pack-a-Punch access is lost — fully upgrade every weapon BEFORE this hand-off.

Solo vs co-op: hold the lighthouse levels and stay inside the objective area; the Seal returns on the end cue. Solo, train the stairwell and keep a wonder weapon in reserve; co-op, post players on each landing and guard revives.

Carry the returned Seal to each of the four normal Pack-a-Punch machines the lighthouse indicates — Beach, Frozen Path, Boathouse and Lagoon — and charge it at each until the machine accepts it (kills feed souls into the charge). Then run the Artifact Storage orb return and the Sunken Path campfire ONE more time. The Seal is now ready for the finale.

Tip: the four machines can be visited in any order; if a charge stalls, clear the immediate area so souls register, then re-interact.

Wait for the special iceberg lighthouse cue, then have the whole team stand on the Sun Deck Flinger to launch to the Golden Pack-a-Punch iceberg — this is the point of no return. The iceberg's Golden Pack-a-Punch only works while the lighthouse beam is shining on it — fling over on the lit cue, not mid-rotation, or you'll find a dead machine. Charge the Seal there while infinite zombies attack (any last weapon can be maxed here in one use); after roughly two minutes the group is flung back and the map’s water becomes lava. A moving protection bubble surrounds the Seal route — leaving it is rapidly lethal. Move with the bubble and kill inside each stop until it advances:

• Hold Main Deck, then Lighthouse Cove.
• Hold Lighthouse Station, then Human Infusion.

Give the finished Seal to the Hermit, take the zipline to Sun Deck, and pick the Seal up at the Forecastle to trigger the ending. After the cutscene, stay close and walk Samantha and Eddie into the light — the final cinematic closes the Aether saga.

Solo vs co-op: solo you both carry and defend, so pre-clear each stop’s route; co-op should assign a bubble caller, a rear guard and a revive specialist, and never chase drops outside the boundary. The objective boundary — not enemy count — decides survival.