Ashes of the Damned — Black Ops 7 Zombies Easter Egg Guide

Grab Ted’s head and install it on Old Tessie. Drive to Blackwater Lake or Vandorn Farm, clear the spore infestation off the power pump and switch the power on. Then drive to Ashwood — zip line either side, opening onto Ashwood Bridge — destroy the infestation there, turn the power on, and install Pack-a-Punch on the back of Tessie.

Do not skip the third generator. Go back and power whichever of Blackwater or the Farm you left — all three are needed later for the timed canister run, and discovering that mid-timer is miserable.

Open the rest of the map by driving Tessie through the barriers between POIs.

Loadout trade-off: MrDalekJD runs the Nikita shotgun, strong against the boss’s red critical mouths up close. MrRoflWaffles says long-range only, no shotguns, because the boss sits at distance. Both work — pick based on whether you expect to be on foot near the crit heads. Cryofreeze and Napalm Burst are both strong against Uber Klaus, and Napalm Burst melts the zursa bears.

Six parts, order flexible, and worth chipping away at alongside the Wonder Weapon build. Track them in the HUD under Serum.

Tomahawks and Molotovs: craft at the barn bench with salvage, or take the free ones — a tomahawk in the diner and at Blackwater Lake, Molotovs in Ashwood.

Worth doing all game: keep destroying the purple ground plants with Tessie’s beam even after you have the Horde Husk Chunks — at high rounds they drop tier-3 Pack-a-Punch crystals.

The other guide: MrDalekJD attributes the fridge key to a special Cook zombie at Exit 115, and says the spore jar needs only two rounds.

• Human Bones — in the Vandorn Farm barn, a body hangs with a foot dripping blood. Throw a tomahawk at the foot to sever it, then a Molotov to burn it down to bone
• Ravager Eyes — on a ravager round, activate any sword or saw trap and let the trap itself kill a ravager. If nothing drops, try a different trap next ravager round
• Horde Husk Chunks — kill a good number of zombies inside the Exit 115 diner until the fridge key drops (check outside too, the key-zombie can wander), open the diner freezer for the Abomination Carcass, install it on the front of Tessie at the Ashwood garage to unlock the beam, then destroy a purple glowing plant at ground level in the fog zones
• Fungus (Widow's Lantern) — take the serum jar from the Blackwater Lake cabin kitchen, plant it on the spore-covered horse just outside Vandorn Farm, wait three to four full rounds, then interact again
• Mysterious Limb — from round 16, damage a yellow-eyed zursa bear with bullets then land the killing blow with Tessie's beam. Blue-eyed fog bears do not count, and if nothing drops your gun did too much of the work
• Powder of the Forgotten — buy Wisp Tea, activate your wisp by shooting zombies, lead it into the Ashwood tailor shop with the mirror, then shoot the mirror with the Necrofluid Gauntlet

From around round 8, be at the Janus Towers Plaza as the round turns — an Uber Klaus climbs out of the Project Janus container. Stand close to the container if he will not appear, and take another round if needed.

Come prepared: have at least Pack-a-Punch tier 1 and a few perks. He is weak to Cryofreeze and Napalm Burst. Shoot the shoulder pads off, and when his health empties he collapses into a core — destroy that.

Confirmation cue: he drops the Stabilizer Chip, highlighted yellow.

Take the Ashwood left zip to Market Square and open the Sheriff’s Office. Klaus is in the jail cell — not the Uber Klaus cage. Interact with the terminal to install the chip.

Now buy or craft stun grenades at 250 salvage each — bring three or four, and spawning in with stuns equipped makes them free. Stand to the left of the jail cell and bounce them off the wall in quick succession.

Confirmation cue: sparkles above Klaus’s head, then his eyes light up. The player who woke him controls him, directing him with the tactical button.

Take Klaus to the Cosmodrome and down to the Support Systems level. Direct him to the broken wall panel so he bashes it, then interact with the machine and stand inside the red scan circle until the bar fills while purple zombies swarm.

Two things stall this: only the scanning player may stand in the circle, and you must look at the scanner beam or progress will not tick at all. In co-op, have someone cover you.

Confirmation cue: the wall cupboard opens — take the aether canister. If Klaus times out, resummon him from any activation station after a couple of minutes.

Pre-position Tessie before you pick the canister up. Carrying it means no sprinting and no jump pads, so solo players want the truck waiting; in co-op have someone drive.

Slot the canister into the middle of each spore-infestation generator in the order Ashwood, Blackwater, Farm. Each extraction takes ten to fifteen seconds with zombies attacking.

The timer is the whole difficulty: between generators a Refined Energy Decay countdown of about 1:30 runs. Fail it and you redo the retina scan and all three generators — not just the leg you missed.

After the Farm charge, carry the canister into the cellar below the barn and interact with the cube. It takes the canister and changes appearance.

Take the jump pad between Janus Towers and Vandorn Farm and, while airborne, read the three red symbols on the barn roof — right, middle, then left across the two jumps. Write them down.

At the cube, the front face has an eyeball — do not touch it. Hold interact on the other three faces to cycle symbols and set your three, then hold interact on the eyeball face to submit. Each face carries a different symbol set, so duplicates are impossible.

Confirmation cue: the eye disappears and the Necrofluid Gauntlet is inside.

The tutorial lockdown: you are rooted to a floor sigil. Shoot a barb at each of the six green blobs around the basement and press reload to recall the barb back through them. All six destroyed releases you. Controls: fire launches a barb, reload recalls it, aim-down-sights detonates it in place.

Open the debris at the Cosmodrome to reveal Yuri’s Lab. Interact with the powder on the chemistry table and a pigpen cipher appears on the chalkboard — three lines, one word each.

Decode all three. The possible words are FUNGI, LIMBS, OCULI, CONCH and TALIS, and each maps to an item on the table. Hold interact on the three corresponding items in top-to-bottom line order.

Confirmation cue: red smoke around the central canister and an “add blood” prompt. A wrong order gives a fail line and black smoke — retry next round.

Prepare before you add blood. The blood-giver’s health drops to around 75 with no regeneration for the duration, and the lockdown runs about 90 seconds during which you cannot leave the room. Kill zombies inside so their souls flow into the canister. Going down fails it — retry at the beaker next round. An Instakill gum makes solo far easier.

Confirmation cue: purple gas washes over the screen, and wisps now orbit the four main POIs.

Each key sits in a fog zone with three possible spawns. Shoot it with a gauntlet barb then detonate or recall to suck it free, and pick it up off the ground. All three go to the pyramid device in Ashwood, and each delivery breaks one set of chains.

Every key applies a debuff while carried — so bring Tessie or a teammate as escort rather than walking it. If a key is not at any listed spot, flip the round and re-check.

Confirmation cue: after the third key, a mid-game cinematic plays.

• Red / Nightbird — Order Graveyard, between Ashwood and Exit 115. Debuff: no health regeneration. Look in the high T-Rex skull's mouth, the ground-level T-Rex skull at the back of the mouth (fiddliest — check the others first), or wedged right of the Project Janus tank vehicles
• Yellow / Bruin — the fog between Ashwood and Zarya. Debuff: melee only. On top of the fallen radio tower, on the building edge as you exit the Cosmodrome near the radar, or high on the cliff up-left entering from Ashwood
• Green / Terrapin — the grounded ship zone between Ashwood and the Farm. Debuff: no sprint, so park Tessie as the escape. Inside the blue shipping container, on the shelf through the window on top of the ship, or under the ship left of the two big silver barrels

Right after the cutscene, pick up the DG-2 turret part and install it on Tessie at the Ashwood garage bench.

Once per round, switch to the turret seat and shoot the floating ethereal clock tower above Ashwood Bridge — drive slightly out of town toward the grounded-ship entrance for the angle, since the turret cannot aim straight up. That stops the clock.

This is the engine for everything that follows. With the clock stopped, shoot a clock face with a barb at close range and detonate to turn purple for a limited window. Three of the four faces work, each once per round — so up to three purple windows per round, and a new round means re-shooting the tower to reset them.

Every one of the four POI quests below must be done while purple.

While purple, enter the farmhouse and read the wall clock time. Stand on the matching Roman numeral scratched into the floorboards — III, IX and XII are marked, and the 6:00 spot is opposite the father, unmarked — and look at the father figure at the head of the table. Stand still.

Wait for the cue. His head slowly turns toward you and his eyes glow red. Only then shoot the head with the gauntlet — the skull knocks back and the step activates.

Collect four ritual items, place them at the ground circles, then quickly re-interact with all four to start a 60-second defence. The artifacts have health, so keep zombies off them — one player per circle in co-op, and Kazimirs, monkeys or Frenzied Guard help a lot solo.

Confirmation cue: the screen flashes white.

• Teddy bear head — on the bunk bed in the upstairs bedroom
• Face mask — in the mystery-box room, or the second floor of the barn (creators differ)
• Chalice — in the cellar next to the bathtub
• Pea's pig sticker — prone under the table to reach it

This needs lightning striking over the diner, which appears about fifteen seconds into a round; if it is absent, play another round or two. Park Tessie in front of the diner and pre-summon Klaus from the radio spawner before you start the timer — you will not have time afterwards.

While purple, shoot the clock on the service-station rooftop with the gauntlet. The lightning freezes and a 60-second timer starts. Inside it, do any or all of three revives — they are repeatable across rounds because the souls persist.

Do not kill a glowing zombie inside its lightning — the soul has to fly up on its own. Any you kill by accident will respawn during the step.

Confirmation cue: the zombies freeze in the lightning and, when the timer ends, become wisps and vanish.

• Waitress — melee the diner cash register to pop it, reviving the waitress beside it; lead her onto the diner rooftop into her matching-colour lightning
• Engineer — direct Klaus to the side of the car by the service station so he stamps it; lead the revived engineer to the yellow lightning on the service-station rooftop
• Trucker — hit the red shipping container with Tessie's beam then ram it open; lead the trucker to the red lightning on the Exit 115 rooftop

While purple, put a gauntlet barb into each of the two spinning satellite dishes to stop them — one per purple window, so this may span two rounds. Purple mist engulfing the dish is the cue it worked.

In the control room behind the Wisp Tea machine, the right-hand monitors flash pigpen symbols two letters at a time, spelling a six-letter word — one of ROCKET, ENGINE, LAUNCH or WEAPON. The word re-randomises after any failure.

The input rule that catches people: each of the six number monitors blinks through four numbers, and the correct one is the letter’s alphabet position counting A as 0 — so position minus one. When the right number shows, shoot the little red button beneath that monitor to lock it, working left to right.

Confirmation cue: souls stream into the rocket and it launches. Take too long and you redo the satellites and re-read the word next round.

With the other three POIs done, interact with the wisp on the docks — it flies to the pyramid, confirming you are ready.

While purple, shoot the projector inside the cabin and immediately watch the screen: it shows four locations in a random order — front of the lodge, upstairs, boathouse, and the shed behind the cabin. Then shoot a regular barb into each film reel in that exact order.

Confirmation cue: each correct reel turns purple and locks in. A wrong order gives a jump scare and you retry next round.

Afterwards, blue misty intel spawns at the reel spots — optional story pickups. Then upstairs in the Speed Cola room, hold interact on the big misty soul to open a box at the foot of the bed. Summon Klaus, direct him to the box, and he takes the glove and walks slowly to the edge of the dock walkway.

• Back of the cabin, by the staircase
• Top of the cabin staircase upstairs, near the power switch
• Boathouse — sticking out of the ceiling rafters
• Tool shed — on the shelf inside the little hut

Point of no return. Interacting with Klaus at the dock starts the final vote. Before voting: tier-3 Pack-a-Punch, best rarity, Kazimirs, armour plates, a salvage reserve for Tessie repairs, and gums ready.

After the vote, souls scatter from the pyramid across the map. Wait about twenty seconds for them to distribute, then drive a full lap from Blackwater.

Three souls per fog zone, and you must collect all three before leaving. Leaving a zone early gives a gong sound and fails the step, forcing a revote next round. Put a gunner on the turret to shoot the explosive mines off the road.

The loop: Blackwater into the Monolith Forest fog toward Janus Towers, through the plaza and the collapsed tower to Vandorn Farm — driving over the green healing pods — then Farm to the grounded ship, up the ramp with a slow right turn and one soul at the end of the ship, into Ashwood, U-turn, and back through the lost cabins zone to Blackwater.

Confirmation cue: picking up the final soul teleports you straight into the boss arena.

This one is fought from the vehicle. The core loop: drive until boost is charged, then boost up the centre ramp and ram the boss for huge damage while firing the abomination beam. A second player mans the DG-2 turret and shoots the weak-point mouths that ramming exposes. On foot, spray the unarmoured head — grey hit markers mean unarmoured, blue means armoured.

Rockets: red circles appear on the ground and detonate after a few seconds. On foot, run tight circles and cut back through spots that have just exploded — that is your safe window.

Immunity phases at roughly 80% and 35% health, plus once at the very end: the boss spins and takes no damage. Keep the turret firing and wait for a blue beam of light to spawn — race the boss to it and drive through to infuse Tessie, then boost-ram to break immunity for about ten seconds and shoot the crit spot under its mouth. If beams stop spawning, ram the boss with un-infused Tessie to unstick the pattern. A Max Ammo in an arena corner signals the phase ending.

The purple laser in the final quarter: its mouth glows for ten to fifteen seconds while charging, then fires a beam that near-instantly kills anyone in the open. Get behind a pillar, or time a ram during the charge-up to interrupt it.

Logistics: a destroyed Tessie costs 150 salvage and about ten seconds to repair, during which you are vulnerable — pop Kazimir or Aether Shroud first. There is a teleport-to-vehicle button in one of the side huts. Max armour and Max Ammo sit in the arena corners and do not expire, unlike zombie drops, so save them. Heal Tessie by driving over green spore pods, and expect bears — Napalm Burst melts them.