Nacht der Untoten
Where it all began. A downed bomber crew holds a ruined German bunker across three rooms — no power, no perks, no Pack-a-Punch, no traps, no quest. Just the barricades, the fixed Mystery Box and the box gun that keeps you alive. Everything the series later became grew out of this one room.
Quick answers
How do you complete the Nacht der Untoten Easter egg?
- Hold the Starting Room early — pistol-and-knife for points, patch barriers only when it's safe
- Open the Help Room for the fixed Mystery Box (the only high-tier weapon source)
- Open an upstairs route only when you want the extra lane — it adds zombie angles too
- Grab the Scoped Kar98k from the upstairs Sniper Cabinet if you want a long-range gun (1,500)
- There is no power, no perk and no Pack-a-Punch — survive on the Box, the walls and grenades
What are the main areas on Nacht der Untoten?
How many side Easter eggs are on Nacht der Untoten?
When was Nacht der Untoten released?
Key areas
Starting Room
Ground-floor spawn — wall weapons (the M1 Carbine and others), grenades, and the window sightlines to the exterior red barrels. In 2008 this is simply where you hold out.
Help Room
Across the ground floor — the FIXED Mystery Box sits in the centre and never moves. The only source of the Ray Gun and the rest of the high-tier pool.
Upper Floor
Reached by a debris/stair route from either room; more wall weapons, a grenade wall-buy, long firing lanes and the Sniper Cabinet. Opening both stair routes turns the map into a small loop.
What to do
- Hold the Starting Room early — pistol-and-knife for points, patch barriers only when it's safe
- Open the Help Room for the fixed Mystery Box (the only high-tier weapon source)
- Open an upstairs route only when you want the extra lane — it adds zombie angles too
- Grab the Scoped Kar98k from the upstairs Sniper Cabinet if you want a long-range gun (1,500)
- There is no power, no perk and no Pack-a-Punch — survive on the Box, the walls and grenades
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.
- No power, no perks and no Pack-a-Punch in the 2008 original — survive on wall guns, grenades and the fixed Mystery Box. Mule Kick (BO1/BO3) and Der Wunderfizz (BO3) are remaster-only.
- Knife round 1, then buy the Kar98k (200) or M1A1 Carbine (600) off the Starting Room wall.
- Open the Help door (1,000) once the Starting Room gets crowded — the Box is the only route to a Ray Gun-tier weapon, and with no Pack-a-Punch whatever you pull is as good as it gets.
- The upper floor is optional: an extra firing lane and the Sniper Cabinet, but extra zombie angles too. Solo players sometimes leave one upstairs sofa shut on purpose.
- Co-op: one player on Box duty in the Help Room, the rest hold the Starting Room windows.
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.
This map exists in more than one release, and these are the points where they differ. Everything else in this guide applies to both.
- “In BO3/Zombies Chronicles you must damage every barrel around the map instead — the wiki counts 28 barrels…” step 5
- “Version: Entirely BO3/Zombies Chronicles content — none of it exists in WaW or BO1.” step 6
- “The BO3 / Zombies Chronicles rule differs — full steps below.” “Undone” (Black Ops version only)
- “Version difference: in Black Ops (BO1) any THREE damaged barrels trigger it…” “Undone” (Black Ops version only)
- “The four grey buttons and the Samantha-doll hide-and-seek that some guides describe are the Black Ops 3 / Zombies Chronicles remaster.” Not in the original
- “Two machines, at spawn and upstairs, in the BO3/Zombies Chronicles version only.” GobbleGum machines (BO3 only)
Full walkthrough
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.
Hold the Starting Room
Knife round 1, then buy ammo off the wall: Kar98k (200) or M1A1 Carbine (600). Five boarded windows sit here — rebuilding a board pays 10 points each, capped per round, so patch only when safe.
Tip: Don't linger on repairs once the round gets busy — the cap means late boards cost time for nothing.
Quick win: Every board you repair pays 10 points; free, and it stacks fast in the early rounds.
Confirmation cue: Points tick up on each board hammered shut.
Version: No music plays here in the WaW original. BO1 and BO3 add the Undone barrel song, triggered from these same windows (step 5).
Open the Help Room and the fixed Mystery Box
Pay 1,000 to open the door. The Mystery Box sits in the room's centre for 950 a pull and never relocates — the only map in the series where it is fixed. Two more wall guns live here too: Double-Barrelled Shotgun and Thompson (1,200 each).
Tip: Because the Box never moves there is no scouting cost like on later maps — just keep feeding it points.
Quick win: A small radio sits on the table right of the Box. Shoot or knife it for a free hidden track (WaW: Black Cats theme, Red Army theme, Königgrätzer Marsch, WTF — each extra hit skips to the next song); no cost, no risk.
Confirmation cue: The track audibly starts or changes.
Version: BO1 swaps the radio's playlist for campaign and Dead Ops Arcade tracks; BO3 keeps that and adds a separate Doctor Monty radio near spawn. On the iOS Call of Duty: Zombies app, knifing this radio unlocks the Radio Silence? achievement.
Open the upper floor (optional loop)
Clearing a staircase's debris opens the largest room on the map, split in two, with four windows, a grenade wall-buy (Stielhandgranates, 4 for 250) and heavier wall guns: Sawed-Off Double-Barrelled Shotgun with Grip (1,200), Trench Gun (1,500), BAR (1,800). Open both stairs and the map becomes a small loop — more escape routes, but two extra flanking angles too.
Tip: If you are holding rather than looping, leave the second staircase's sofa barricade shut.
Version: BO3 replaces every WWII wall gun here with BO3-era weapons (RK5, Pharo, Kuda, KN-44, Sheiva, KRM-262, Argus).
Sniper Cabinet: the Scoped Kar98k
Switch to a weapon you can afford to lose first — interacting buys and equips the gun instantly, no prompt. Pay 1,500 for a Scoped Kar98k — always this gun, never a random roll — and the cabinet also sells reserve ammo (reported by mmmrkennedy.com at around 380). It cannot be Pack-a-Punched; nothing on this map can.
Tip: Check this cabinet even after clearing the room — there is no weapon outline, so groups walk past it for games.
Quick win: Ammo top-ups here mean no need to leave the upper floor once you own the gun.
Confirmation cue: The gun swap is instant and silent — the only tell is your loadout changing.
Version: BO3 replaces it with a Locus (5,000). The iOS build swaps in an M2 Flamethrower (2,000) instead.
Undone (Black Ops re-release only)
Not present in the 2008 original. Shoot three barrels visible from the Starting Room — they only need to be damaged, not destroyed, and an already-exploded barrel still counts. One clean hit each: stair-side exterior (window beside the main stairs), far back corner (diagonally across from the M1 Carbine side), and truck-side exterior (window nearest the M1 Carbine side).
Tip: Do this early, before the windows get too busy to stand at safely.
Quick win: Passive once triggered — the roughly four-minute Kevin Sherwood instrumental just plays while you keep working the Box.
Confirmation cue: The track starts after the third registered hit.
Version: In BO1, any three damaged barrels trigger it. In BO3/Zombies Chronicles you must damage every barrel around the map instead — the wiki counts 28 barrels, codzombieguides.com counts 30, so simply sweep every one you find. One activation per match either way.
BO3 only: Samantha's Hide-and-Seek, Mule Kick and Der Wunderfizz
Not in WaW or BO1. Interact with four buttons: under the shelf at the base of the Box-room stairs, on the ceiling above the spiral stairwell from spawn, left of the Mule Kick machine, and opposite the Argus wall-buy upstairs. A thunderclap confirms all four. Interact with the starter doll at the RK5 wall-buy, then hunt spinning dolls (music-box audio marks each) at spots including the roof hole by Der Wunderfizz, a Starting Room fence post and pond window, the tank barrel by Mule Kick, an upstairs power-line post, a Starting Room truck and a downstairs generator. Shoot each until it vanishes; the last one triggers a thunderclap, a Max Ammo and Samantha's Lullaby.
Quick win: Mule Kick (4,000) sits in the spawn room and Der Wunderfizz (up to four random perks) sits upstairs in the Sniper Cabinet room — both BO3-only, both worth the detour if you are running that version.
Confirmation cue: Thunderclap after the fourth button, and again after the last doll.
Version: Entirely BO3/Zombies Chronicles content — none of it exists in WaW or BO1.
Hold-and-train plan for high rounds
A published Steam Community strategy runs this in three phases: hold the Starting Room on knife and pistol early, open the Help door around round 7 and put one player on Box duty while the rest hold spawn, then move the team to a fixed upstairs spot around round 15 and stop — only reposition at round-end, using crawlers to buy the pause. Never open extra doors beyond your hold; each one just adds a zombie spawn angle.
Tip: That guide's loadout (Ray Gun, Monkey Bombs, LMGs) is BO1/BO3 Box-only — the WaW Box has no Monkey Bomb or Thundergun, so substitute a strong Panzerschreck, MG42 or PTRS-41 pull there.
Quick win: Keeping the stairs door shut on your hold side removes one zombie angle for free.
Version: The weapon loadout above assumes BO1/BO3 Box contents; adjust for WaW as noted.
Side Easter Eggs & extras
Everything beyond the main quest. Tap any entry to open the full how-and-where breakdown.
Fixed Mystery Box
Unlike every later map, the Box never relocates — it sits in the centre of the Help Room all game. It holds the Ray Gun and the rest of the high-tier pool, and with no Pack-a-Punch whatever you pull is as strong as it gets.
Sniper Cabinet — Scoped Kar98k
A tall cabinet upstairs, behind the central pillar toward the Trench Gun side (easy to mistake for scenery). Interact and pay 1,500 for a Scoped Kar98k — always that gun, never random. It sells reserve ammo too, but it can't be Pack-a-Punched here. Full steps below.
- Open a route upstairs (from the stairs nearest the Mystery Box, reach the top and turn toward the back of the room).
- Find the tall cabinet behind the central pillar near the Trench Gun side — it has no weapon outline and looks like scenery.
- Switch to a weapon you're willing to lose first — opening the cabinet immediately buys and equips the gun, with no confirmation.
- Interact and pay 1,500. You always get a Scoped Kar98k. Buy reserve ammo from it as needed — but it can't be Pack-a-Punched here.
“Undone” (Black Ops version only)
Added in the Black Ops re-release — not in the 2008 original. Kevin Sherwood's ~4-minute instrumental. Shoot three red explosive barrels visible through the Starting-Room barriers — they only need to be damaged, not exploded. One activation per match. The BO3 / Zombies Chronicles rule differs — full steps below.
- Added in the Black Ops re-release — the 2008 World at War Nacht has no song. The track is Kevin Sherwood's ~4-minute instrumental “Undone”. Complete it early from the Starting Room before the sightlines get crowded.
- The barrels only need to be DAMAGED, not exploded — a single hit that marks the barrel registers. Don't wait for it to blow up, and a barrel that has already exploded still counts; this is the mistake most players make.
- Barrel 1 — stair-side exterior: look through the Starting-Room window beside the main stairs; the red barrel stands outside near the approach. One clean bullet is enough.
- Barrel 2 — far back corner: from the barrier diagonally across from the M1 Carbine side, scan the back corner of the yard and shoot the red cylinder itself (not the wreckage).
- Barrel 3 — truck-side exterior: use the window closest to the M1 Carbine side and shoot the red barrel beside the truck. The third registered hit starts the track.
- Version difference: in Black Ops (BO1) any THREE damaged barrels trigger it; in the Black Ops 3 / Zombies Chronicles remaster you must damage EVERY red barrel around the map — which is exactly why sweeping all of them always works. One activation per match.
Help Room music radio
An original World at War secret: a small radio on the table to the right of the fixed Mystery Box — shoot or stab it to start a hidden track, and each further hit cycles to the next song. The World at War playlist runs the Black Cats theme, the Red Army theme, Königgrätzer Marsch and the Zombies track “WTF”. It counts as triggered the moment it plays. (The Black Ops re-release later expanded the playlist with Dead Ops tracks.)
Not in the original
The four grey buttons and the Samantha-doll hide-and-seek that some guides describe are the Black Ops 3 / Zombies Chronicles remaster. The 2008 map has only the Box, the Sniper Cabinet and the survival hold.
Samantha's Hide-and-Seek (BO3 only)
Four grey buttons (Box-room stairs shelf, the ceiling above the spiral stairwell, left of Mule Kick, opposite the Argus wall-buy), then a doll hunt from the RK5 wall-buy. The last doll pays a thunderclap, a Max Ammo and Samantha's Lullaby. See step 6.
Radio Silence? (iOS app only)
On the old iOS Call of Duty: Zombies app, knifing the Help Room radio unlocks the Radio Silence? achievement.
Mule Kick and Der Wunderfizz (BO3 only)
Mule Kick (4,000) is in the spawn room and Der Wunderfizz (up to four random perks) is upstairs in the Sniper Cabinet room — neither exists in WaW or BO1.
GobbleGum machines (BO3 only)
Two machines, at spawn and upstairs, in the BO3/Zombies Chronicles version only.
Recommended loadouts
Three strong picks for this map — the map's Wonder Weapon plus reliable box/wall options. These are pre-augment-era games, so the setup is the gun plus Pack-a-Punch and perk synergy.
Ray Gun
Box crowd-clearThe only real power weapon on the map — pull it from the fixed Help Room box. No Pack-a-Punch, so mind the splash up close and make every shot count; there's no PhD Flopper here.
Thompson
Reliable wall gunA strong, cheap wall SMG for sustained fire and easy ammo refills — your dependable backbone when the Box is dry.
Scoped Kar98k
Long-range pickBought from the upstairs Sniper Cabinet (1,500) — a precise novelty for the long lanes. It can't be upgraded, so keep a Box gun for panic.
When it isn't working
The stalls that actually cost people runs on this map, and what to do about each.
Doing everything right and nothing happens?
Common Nacht der Untoten questions
Direct answers to the specific things players look up mid-game — part locations, puzzle steps and more.
Is there a power switch on Nacht der Untoten?
Where is the Mystery Box on Nacht der Untoten?
How do I get the Scoped Kar98k?
Should I open the upstairs on Nacht der Untoten?
Why won't the red barrels register for the song?
What is the radio in the Help Room?
Are the grey buttons and the Samantha doll hunt in the original?
Visual guides & sources
Screenshots and exact part locations live in these — open one on a second screen.
Map discussion
A shared community board for Nacht der Untoten — 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.