Call of the Dead — Black Ops Zombies Easter Egg Guide

In this guide: full main-quest walkthrough, recommended loadout, side Easter eggs & songs, boss strategy · Medium, ~30–55 min.

Open the interactive guide →
Black Ops · 2010

Call of the Dead

A Siberian coast with a celebrity cast and George Romero on your tail. Free Richtofen's trapped crew to obtain the Golden Rod — needed later for Moon.

Released 3 May 2011 Ensemble Cast / Stand-inSolo-ableGolden Rod
MediumEst. time30–55 minPlayers1–4 (solo-capable)Updated7 Sep 2026
Documented here7 walkthrough steps · 4 side Easter eggs (incl. 1 song) · 3 weapon builds · 8 named areas · 2 sources cross-checkedCounted from this page, not estimated. We publish what is documented rather than a percentage of what might exist — nobody can honestly claim to know the full list.

Quick answers

Call of the Dead is a Black Ops Zombies map on a Siberian coast, with a celebrity cast — Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund, Danny Trejo and Michael Rooker — and George A. Romero stalking the team the whole match. The quest frees Richtofen's trapped Ultimis crew and rewards the Golden Rod, which is needed later on Moon. Solo plays Stand-in; co-op plays the longer Ensemble Cast. Rated Medium, 30–55 minutes.

How do you complete the Call of the Dead Easter egg?

It is rated Medium and takes about 30–55 min. The run breaks down like this:
  1. Power on in the ship
  2. Knife the bunker door → insert the Fuse
  3. (Co-op) Destroy the 4 generators
  4. (Co-op) Get Nikolai's Vodka
  5. V-R11: turn a zombie human, kill it up the lighthouse → Golden Rod
  6. Insert the Golden Rod & knife the fuse to finish
Each stage is written out in full — with the exact locations, the order things must be done in and what to do when a step refuses to trigger — in the walkthrough below.

How long does the Call of the Dead Easter egg take?

About 30–55 min for a run that already knows the steps, and we rate it Medium. A first attempt takes considerably longer — almost all of the time goes on setup rather than the finale, so knowing the order in advance is what shortens a run.

Can you do the Call of the Dead Easter egg solo?

Players: 1–4 (solo-capable). It is solo-capable. Co-op mainly helps with the timed steps, where a second player can hold a zombie or cover a second position, and it makes the ending far more forgiving.

Is there a song Easter egg on Call of the Dead?

Yes — “Not Ready to Die”. Avenged Sevenfold. Hold interact on the 3 meteor fragments (any order): at spawn on/by the barrel beside the water and boat · the first-ship dining-room area on a bench · the PhD Flopper room on the table. Once per match. Full trigger steps for it are in the side Easter eggs section.

What are the main areas on Call of the Dead?

8 are documented: Spawn / Bow wreckage, The Ship (stern freighter), Lighthouse, Ice Slide, Frozen water / George's pool, Upper cliff / Stamin-Up path, Trapped-crew door (below deck) and Roaming Pack-a-Punch corners. Knowing the names matters more than it sounds — most guides, including this one, describe locations by area name rather than by direction.

How many side Easter eggs are on Call of the Dead?

4 are documented here — song, side quest, reward and free weapon. Each one has its own steps rather than a one-line mention, so they can be followed mid-game.

When was Call of the Dead released?

3 May 2011.

Key areas

Spawn / Bow wreckage

Coastal start by the wrecked bow; fuse and boat toward the lighthouse; zipline anchor; musical rock #1 on a barrel.

The Ship (stern freighter)

Main shipwreck: the Power Room at the top, the steering wheel, and the Flinger that throws players to the lighthouse base.

Lighthouse

Four-level tower: Mystery Box floors, dial mechanism for the Ensemble Cast EE, zipline to the ship; PaP beam points to the machine's current location.

Ice Slide

Slide from the upper path down toward Speed Cola and the Sickle purchase.

Frozen water / George's pool

The shallows where George A. Romero retreats when calmed; water frosts the screen and freezes players and zombies.

Upper cliff / Stamin-Up path

High path with Stamin-Up and a generator used in the EE; connects lighthouse top to the ship zipline.

Trapped-crew door (below deck)

The locked room holding Ultimis — centre of the Stand-in/Ensemble Cast quest; items are delivered here.

Roaming Pack-a-Punch corners

PaP cycles between set spots (ship deck, lighthouse base area); lightning strikes when it moves.

Steps at a glance

  1. Power on in the ship
  2. Knife the bunker door → insert the Fuse
  3. (Co-op) Destroy the 4 generators
  4. (Co-op) Get Nikolai's Vodka
  5. V-R11: turn a zombie human, kill it up the lighthouse → Golden Rod
  6. Insert the Golden Rod & knife the fuse to finish
Solo counts (the Stand-in achievement). Co-op adds the generator and vodka steps and gives Ensemble Cast. The Golden Rod carries over to the Moon Easter Egg in BO1.

Before you start

What to have in hand before step 1 — from the loadout notes, from the walkthrough itself, and from the map's own quest documentation where the gate is never stated in a step.

Gates on this quest
  • Both versions need the power on and the Ultimis door knifed before anything starts.
  • Ensemble Cast, the co-op version, cannot be completed alone. Playing solo runs Stand-in instead, which is a different sequence rather than a shortened one.

Set aside 30–55 min · 1–4 (solo-capable)

Where your run will differ

Gathered here so you meet them before they cost you a run rather than after — quoted word for word from the guide below, or researched from the map's own quest documentation.

Solo or co-op

What changes with your player count. The rest of the guide is the same either way.

  • “In solo this (with the shared opening) brings up the green lighthouse beam…” step 3
  • Solo runs Stand-in and puts the Golden Rod into the ear tube; co-op runs Ensemble Cast and uses the vodka instead. Both finish with the Wunderwaffe DG-2 power-up.

Full walkthrough

0% complete

The quest in the order this guide runs it — tap any step to jump to it, and it fills in as you tick steps off.

1
First ship · lighthouse beam

Setup — power, V-R11 & the moving Pack-a-Punch

+

Open up through the first ship to its upper control room and throw the power switch (the steering wheel and three-lever console there are used later). Get the V-R11 from the Mystery Box — it does not need Pack-a-Punching for the quest — and carry a dependable explosive (Frag/Semtex, China Lake, Scavenger, Crossbow…) for the generators and the beam. Pack-a-Punch is mobile: after power the lighthouse projects a beam to the current machine, which appears near spawn (right of Quick Revive), by the second ship / Jugger-Nog, or behind the lighthouse — follow the beam and don't leave a gun inside as it moves.

Don't shoot George Romero needlessly — he follows the nearest player and enrages when shot; lead him into deep water to cool him. Keep one slow zombie away from the lighthouse for every control/radio/dial step.

2
Ultimis door · PhD room

Shared opening — door, fuse & four generators

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Below the PhD Flopper room, knife the sealed Ultimis metal door to trigger Richtofen's dialogue. Then grab the Fuse from the PhD room — one of three spots: the table on the left, the table immediately left of the PhD machine, or the floor by the locker — and insert it into the fuse box on the right of the door; knife the door again. Next destroy the four red generators with explosives:

  • Directly across from the Ultimis door, outside the wall.
  • Outside the left window of the Stamin-Up cabin.
  • In the water at the rear of the ship (use an elevated deck angle).
  • In the gap between the two broken ship sections where the decks connect.

With all four dark, knife the door again to advance. If Richtofen doesn't move on, one generator didn't register — re-hit any still glowing red.

The Ray Gun and Matryoshka Dolls may not count as explosive damage on these generators (they do work later for the V-R11 rod step), so use Frag/Semtex, the China Lake, the Crossbow or the Scavenger here to avoid a silent non-register.

3
Power-room console

Set the ship controls

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At the three-lever console in the power room: pull the left lever once, leave the middle untouched, and pull the right lever three times. Then use the steering wheel — turn it right twice so the brown handle points to roughly 5 o'clock. In solo this (with the shared opening) brings up the green lighthouse beam; in co-op it surfaces the submarine for the foghorns.

4
Ship railings · around the map

Co-op — frozen Vodka & four Morse radios

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Solo skips this step. Find the single bottle of frozen vodka on one of four railings/ledges — the PhD staircase railing, the upper railing above it, the ship railing by the M16 wall-buy, or the ledge linking the ship halves by the MP40 — then one player knifes it from above while another catches it below before it smashes (a miss respawns it elsewhere). Insert it into the transfer tube left of the door. Then activate the four Morse radios in this exact order: (1) below the power room on a cabinet, (2) on a barrel inside the Stamin-Up cabin, (3) inside a shipping container on the back ship section, (4) under the staircase in the room behind the Ultimis-door wall. When the order is right you hear Morse code and a glowing yellow ellipse appears near the perk machine — that's your confirmation, so don't redo the sequence. A wrong order restarts from radio 1.

5
Shore horns · lighthouse dials

Co-op — four foghorns & the lighthouse dials

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Solo skips this step. While the map fog is present and the submarine is surfaced, sound the four foghorns in order: (1) the lighthouse base by the water, (2) just right after the icy slide, in/near the water, (3) the land horn outside the lighthouse doors (closest), (4) the farther land horn behind the rock ahead of the icy slide. On success the submarine shines a green light at the lighthouse. If the horns were sounded in the wrong order (or the submarine wasn't surfaced), the attempt doesn't break permanently — it simply resets at the next round, so wait a round and redo the sequence. Then set the lighthouse security dials to the code 2-7-4-6 (Yellow top, Orange, Blue, Purple bottom).

The dials are linked — setting each number independently won't work: turn Purple to 6; turn Orange until Blue shows 4; turn Yellow until Orange shows 7; keep turning Yellow to 2 (count the turns) and turn Purple that many times; finally turn Blue to 4 → read top-to-bottom 2-7-4-6.

6
Lighthouse shaft

V-R11 beam → the Golden Rod

+

With the green beam active, bring a zombie or crawler to the lower lighthouse and shoot it once with the V-R11 — it turns human and floats up the green shaft. Hit the rising human hard (Scavenger, Ray Gun splash, Matryoshka Dolls or another strong explosive) before he reaches the top — damage him until he slumps and hangs limp like a downed player, which is the cue the rod will drop. If he reaches the top still upright, no rod drops and you retry with a fresh zombie. The Golden Rod then appears at the bottom of the lighthouse — grab it.

7
Ultimis door

Finish — the fuse & Wunderwaffe DG-2

+

Insert the Golden Rod into the transfer tube to the left of the Ultimis door and wait through the full dialogue (don't knife early). When the fuse box on the right starts sparking, knife it once, wait for the final lines, and collect the Wunderwaffe DG-2 power-up in front of the door.

Reward: the Wunderwaffe DG-2 (a temporary slot-free weapon for everyone) and the Golden Rod, carried into the Moon story quest. The route earns Stand-in (solo) or Ensemble Cast (co-op).

Side Easter Eggs & extras

Everything beyond the main quest. Tap any entry to open the full how-and-where breakdown.

Song

“Not Ready to Die”

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Avenged Sevenfold. Hold interact on the 3 meteor fragments (any order): at spawn on/by the barrel beside the water and boat · the first-ship dining-room area on a bench · the PhD Flopper room on the table. Once per match.

  1. Hold Use on 3 Element 115 meteorites, in any order
  2. Spawn area — on the metal barrels in the bushes by the water where George surfaces (leftmost barrel)
  3. Ship — in the Cafeteria / dining area, on a bench near a door
  4. Under the Lighthouse — in the PhD Flopper room, beneath the small clock nightstand across from PhD
  5. 'Not Ready to Die' by Avenged Sevenfold plays
Side quest

Kill George Romero

+

George follows players and enrages when shot — lead him into deep water to cool him, not fire. Killing him needs very high total damage; he drops a random perk (and, once the quest is done, a temporary Wunderwaffe DG-2), and earns the Quiet on the Set achievement.

  1. Romero walks toward one targeted player and has a huge health pool (~250,000 per player); three hits down you even with Juggernog
  2. Lead him into water to calm his rage — but he takes MORE damage out of the water, so pull him onto dry land to burn him down
  3. Damage him with the best tools: a PaP'd Dragunov (D115) headshots, the PaP'd Scavenger, or ~48s of a Death Machine
  4. On death he drops a free random perk and a Death Machine — or the Wunderwaffe DG-2 instead if you've completed the main Easter egg
  5. He returns about every 2 rounds, so you can farm the reward
  6. To just remove him without a reward, shoot him with a PaP'd V-R11 while he's in the water — he vanishes for ~2 rounds
Reward

Map achievements

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Beyond Stand-in / Ensemble Cast: Stuntman — Pack-a-Punch the V-R11 and shoot a zombie twice so the upgraded blast makes it explode; Shooting on Location — kill ten zombies with a single Scavenger shot from over 100 feet.

Free weapon

Map-exclusive box weapons

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The V-R11 (turns a zombie into a fleeing human — the quest tool) and the Scavenger (explosive bolt-action sniper) are exclusive to this map.

When it isn't working

The stalls that actually cost people runs on this map, and what to do about each.

TroubleshootingEach of these is quoted from the step it belongs to, derived from a gate the guide already states, or researched from the map's own quest documentation — nothing here is guesswork about what might be going wrong.

Stuck on step 2 — Shared opening — door, fuse & four generators?

If Richtofen doesn't move on, one generator didn't register — re-hit any still glowing red.

Stuck on step 5 — Co-op — four foghorns & the lighthouse dials?

The dials are linked — setting each number independently won't work: turn Purple to 6; turn Orange until Blue shows 4; turn Yellow until Orange shows 7; keep turning Yellow to 2 (count the turns) and turn Purple that many times; finally turn Blue to 4 → read top-to-bottom 2-7-4-6.

The trapped crew won't progress after the fuse

Sequence gates: fuse (three possible spawns by PhD Flopper) → four red security orbs destroyed with explosives (Ray Gun/LAW/Semtex must hit dead-centre; China Lake/Crossbow/Scavenger are forgiving) → wheel to 5 o'clock, lever 1 once, lever 3 three times → V-R11 zombie into the lighthouse light, killed before the top → rod in the tube → knife the fusebox. Doing these out of order does nothing.

Playing solo, the vodka step never appears

Solo runs the Stand-in variant — the vodka/co-op items belong to Ensemble Cast, which 'cannot be completed solo'. Solo you insert the Golden Rod where co-op inserts the vodka.

V-R11 human runs to water instead of the lighthouse

The V-R11 zombie only runs into the beam after the submarine's green light step (wheel/levers) is done; kill him 'before he reaches the top' or repeat with another zombie. The V-R11 is weighted into the box during this step.

George ruins every attempt

George A. Romero spawns from round 1 and rages when shot; lead him into the shallow water to calm him (map page: the frozen pool is his retreat). SINGLE SOURCE for the calming detail as phrased — the map page describes his pool retreat; verify wording before publish.

Common Call of the Dead questions

Direct answers to the specific things players look up mid-game — part locations, puzzle steps and more.

Where is Pack-a-Punch on Call of the Dead?

It moves. Once the power is on, the lighthouse beam sweeps round and points at wherever the machine currently is, and a cluster of lightning fires when it relocates. Follow the beam rather than a fixed spot.

What do the Scavenger and the V-R11 do?

The Scavenger is a bolt-action sniper whose bolts stick and then explode. The V-R11 turns a zombie back into a human, who sprints for water — or into the lighthouse beam, during the quest — and it also calms George. Both are exclusive to this map.

What is the difference between Stand-in and Ensemble Cast?

Stand-in is the solo version and Ensemble Cast is the co-op one. Solo skips the four generators, Nikolai's vodka, the Morse radios and the foghorns; co-op needs all of them. Both end the same way, with the Golden Rod.

Why does my screen frost over?

You are standing in water. Frost builds up, blinds you and eventually freezes you. Get out and it thaws. The same water freezes zombies solid, and a frozen zombie shatters to one melee hit.

How do I handle George Romero?

Do not shoot him unless you mean to kill him — damage enrages him and he charges. He calms down in the water. Killing him takes an enormous amount of total damage and drops a random perk bottle; once the main quest is finished, killing him also drops a Wunderwaffe DG-2 power-up.

Where is the Sickle on Call of the Dead?

At the bottom of the ice slide, by Speed Cola, for 3,000 points.

Which perks are on Call of the Dead?

Quick Revive, Jugger-Nog, Speed Cola, Double Tap, Stamin-Up, PhD Flopper, Mule Kick and Deadshot Daiquiri, which debuts on this map — it steadies your aim and snaps to the head when you aim down sights.

Who are the playable characters?

Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund, Danny Trejo and Michael Rooker, playing themselves as a film crew. The Ultimis four — Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen — are the ones trapped behind the door you are working to open.

Visual guides & sources

Screenshots and exact part locations live in these — open one on a second screen.

Map discussion

A shared community board for Call of the Dead — posts are public, saved on the server and visible to everyone across devices. Handy for strategies, spawn variations you've noticed, or steps to double-check. Please keep it civil and on-topic.

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Part of the Zombies Easter Egg Codex — step-by-step Call of Duty Zombies Easter egg guides for every map. Open Call of the Dead in the interactive codex for the solvers and map discussion.