Key Features
Choose the solo milestone or the full co-op ending
- For Cryogenic Slumber Party, one player can complete the computers, Hacker panels, Tunnel 6 sphere and first soul tube. For Big Bang Theory, use 2–4 players with Richtofen in the match. Arrange for a participating player to have completed both Call of the Dead’s co-op Ensemble Cast and Shangri-La’s Time Travel Will Tell on the same saved profile. Check Richtofen’s HUD for the combined Vril Device at the start; without it, stop at the first milestone.
BO1’s solo character is Dempsey. The full solo ending described in Chronicles guides belongs to BO3, not unmodified BO1.
Survive Area 51 and equip your P.E.S.
- At Area 51, the alarm opens the teleporter cage. Move all players onto the pad to escape. On arrival at Griffin Station, immediately take a P.E.S. from the locker and equip it before going outside. Open either Tunnel 6 or Tunnel 11 to reach the pyramid room and flip the power switch.
Power Switch Next to M.P.D. - Open the laboratories and outside teleporter route. All players stand on the Moon teleporter when its lights are green to revisit Area 51 for Pack-a-Punch. Jugger-Nog and Speed Cola alternate there between visits. Obtain the Wave Gun, Gersh Devices and Q.E.D.s from the Box for the quest; Gersh and Q.E.D. occupy the same slot, so plan to obtain Gersh again for the ending.
Find the Hacker and protect your air
- The Hacker is a small brown device on a yellow pad in the three-floor laboratory. Search two spots per floor. Picking it up replaces your P.E.S.; swapping back to P.E.S. drops the Hacker. Use pressurised routes and return for a suit before a long trip through a breached area.
- Floor 1: shelf near the stairs; shelf near the doorway from the MPD room.
- Floor 2: electrical box beside the stairs; blue structural railing on the opposite side.
- Floor 3: metal tanks beside Deadshot; shelf left of the Biodome doorway.
Hacker reference - Listen to the excavator announcement: Pi breaches Tunnel 6, Omicron Tunnel 11, Epsilon the Biodome. Hack the matching active console in the Receiving Bay to stop/retract it. For the main quest, Pi must actually breach Tunnel 6 once before you retract it. Retraction clears the machinery but does not restore the lost atmosphere.
Excavator Pi breaching Tunnel 6
Main Quest
Samantha Says and the timed laboratory panels
- After power is on, interact with the four computers outside the Receiving Bay near Tunnel 6. Facing them, the physical order from left to right is Red, Green, Blue, Yellow. Watch the flashing sequence, then interact with the matching computers in that order. Complete the initial set of increasingly long sequences. Red failure feedback means replay the attempt.
Simon Says Computers - Take the Hacker to floor 2 of the laboratories. Hack the far-left button on the four-button wall for 500 points. A roughly 60-second timer starts: locate and hack the four green-lit panel boxes among the eight possible boxes across the three floors. Ordinary unlit boxes do not count.
Button Wall - Return to the four-button wall and quickly interact with all four buttons normally, rather than hacking them. The illuminated wall confirms success. If the timed attempt failed, restart at the initial button and search again; the selected green boxes may differ.
Buttons glowing on button wall
Samantha Says sequence recorder Open helper
Facing the four outside computers, their order is Red, Green, Blue, Yellow from left to right. Tap what flashes, then use the numbered result in-game.
After power is on, start at the outside computers by Tunnel 6. Watch the flashes, record them below, then press the same computers in-game. Repeated colours are allowed.
Your recorded sequence
No flashes recorded yet. Tap a colour above to start.
See the computer positions
Saved for this BO1 helper in this browser. Open this step in the map guide →
Image sources and editions
Gameplay: Activision / Treyarch. Photographs and symbol references: mmmrkennedy, COD Zombies Guides and their credited community contributors. Shared-location photographs can show a remaster; the instructions and weapon landmarks here describe Black Ops (2010). See the map’s sources.
Hacker panel & cable finder Open helper
Choose what you are looking for, narrow by area and select a photograph to enlarge it. Use the instructions for the current step before interacting.
After hacking the floor-2 starter button, find four green-lit boxes among these eight. The photos mark three boxes on floor 1, two on floor 2 and three on floor 3. Hack only the green ones in your match.
3 references
Saved for this BO1 helper in this browser. Open this step in the map guide →
Image sources and editions
Gameplay: Activision / Treyarch. Photographs and symbol references: mmmrkennedy, COD Zombies Guides and their credited community contributors. Shared-location photographs can show a remaster; the instructions and weapon landmarks here describe Black Ops (2010). See the map’s sources.
Tunnel 6, the sphere and the first soul tube
- Wait for Excavator Pi to breach Tunnel 6, then retract it with the Hacker at the Receiving Bay. Equip a P.E.S. for the now-depressurised tunnel. Find the black Vril Sphere on the Tunnel 6 floor and melee it to start it moving toward spawn.
Vril Sphere - Follow the sphere. When it lodges on the satellite dish above the Receiving Bay, shoot it with the Wave Gun in its combined mode. Follow it into Tunnel 11, opening doors and shooting or using an explosive when it sticks out of reach near the ceiling. Guide it to the socket in front of the pyramid.
Satellite Dish Above Spawn Vril Sphere entering Vril Interface - Kill 25 zombies close to the newly exposed MPD tube so their souls enter it. When it is full, use the nearby lever to open the pyramid and reveal Samantha. Cryogenic Slumber Party and its temporary Death Machine mark the first milestone; continue below for the full ending.
Power Switch Next to M.P.D.
Bring back the plates and charge the Golden Rod
- Bring a Gersh Device to Area 51. Throw a grenade at the hexagonal plates on the shelf to the right of the teleporter, knocking them down. Throw a Gersh close enough to pull the plates onto the teleporter, then return to the Moon.
Hexagonal Plates on Shelf - The plates now lie beside Quick Revive. Throw a Q.E.D. at them to move them to the computer in the opposite corner of the Receiving Bay. Keep Q.E.D.s until the later sphere-transfer step.
Hexagonal Plates near Quick Revive Computer in Spawn - Pick up the silver S-shaped cable in or just outside the laboratories. Sweep shelves, floors and corners on all three levels, then the outside area near Mule Kick. The photographs show its appearance and outside search area, not every possible spawn. Connect it between the Receiving Bay computer and plates.
S shaped cable appearance (location in the image is stairs leading to the third floor of the lab) S Cables Outside the Laboratory S shaped cable connected to computer - Richtofen places his Golden Rod/Vril Device between the plates. Keep interacting with the computer through Maxis’s dialogue until the charge completes and the device glows. Pick the charged device back up before leaving.
Vril Device fully powered
Soul transfer and Earth’s destruction
- At the MPD, fill all four exposed tubes with 25 nearby zombie souls apiece. Richtofen inserts the charged device at the front of the pyramid, triggering the body swap and his permanent perks. After the dialogue, throw a Q.E.D. at the sphere in front of the MPD to send it back toward the computers.
Filled Souls Containers - Complete three more Samantha Says games at the outside computers. Replace Q.E.D.s with Gersh Devices, then throw a Gersh beside the sphere to the right of the computers. A countdown begins and three rockets strike Earth. Big Bang Theory and permanent perks for the team confirm the full BO1 ending; you can continue playing afterwards.
Vril Sphere next to computers Earth Destroyed
Side Quests
Useful Hacker interactions
- Hack a power-up for 5,000 points to convert it into Max Ammo. Protect the player while the hack completes; do not pick up the drop first.
- Hack an unclaimed Box weapon to reroll it for 600 points. Hacking the rerolled result lets a teammate take it and refunds points to the hacker. Hacking a perk machine for a perk you own removes that perk and refunds its purchase price.
- Hack a teammate to transfer 500 of your points to them. This is useful when a teammate needs a door or perk; it does not generate free points.
Coming Home, electronic songs and Nightmare
- Interact with three helmet-wearing teddy bears: on the crates below the Receiving Bay, in the airlock between Tunnel 6 and power, and in the broken wall near Stamin-Up. The third starts Coming Home.
- For the short electronic tracks, interact with the lab computers by the upper-floor weapon wall/Deadshot (Damned), the consoles by the Tunnel 11 door to power (Coming Home), and the floor-2 lab computers by the window crates (Pareidolia). These do not advance the main quest.
- Nightmare is tied to the One Giant Leap setup in co-op: both tunnels must be breached, one player on the Receiving Bay side bleeds out, and the surviving player across the blocked routes finishes the round to respawn them. This deliberately costs a life; attempt it only when the team is ready for that optional challenge.
Astronaut, gravity and the Biodome
- The astronaut walks slowly but teleports a player and steals a perk if it catches them. Back away while shooting it; keep distance when it explodes. Call its position before a teammate runs around the same blind corner.
- The P.E.S. protects you in vacuum, while the Hacker replaces it. A breached tunnel remains depressurised after its excavator retracts, and broken laboratory windows can also remove air. Swap to the P.E.S. before crossing those areas. Avoid a long Hacker search while suffocating.
- Biodome launch pads follow a set route and can send you into an unsafe landing. Keep the landing zone clear and avoid activating one accidentally while circling a horde. PhD Flopper protects against fall damage in this edition; it does not supply oxygen.
Five radios and six audio reels
- Interact with the five radios below. Several require low-gravity jumps; equip the P.E.S. and check the landing before trying them.
- Outside Receiving Bay, beside a boulder on the cliff.
- Outside the labs near Mule Kick, hanging from the crane.
- Outside the first lab window on the right from power; breaking it removes air.
- On the pipe opposite Tunnel 6’s second door.
- On the support railing in the Biodome’s middle; reach it from a launch pad.
- One reel appears at a time. Play it in the floor-2 lab machine left of the stairs from floor 1; another then spawns. Repeat for six recordings.
- MPD/power: opposite desk, left power conduits, or lab-airlock corner.
- Tunnel 11: first-room desk; final-room box; by its window computers; computers opposite the power-room door.
- Tunnel 6: beside its fourth window.
- Receiving Bay: quest computer or rack behind the Box.
- Labs: first Hacker desk.
Sources and review
Written for Black Ops (2010), with its title updates; mobile editions and modded maps can differ. Community guides and illustrated references were cross-checked on 3 October 2026. Gameplay: Activision / Treyarch; photographs: the credited community authors below. Reused photographs may show a remaster of the same location; the instructions describe this edition. Source review and software checks are not an in-game playthrough.
- r/CODZombies community guide ↗
- COD Zombies Guides illustrated walkthrough (2) ↗
- callofduty.fandom.com reference (3) ↗
Select any reference image to enlarge it. Screenshot and symbol sources are credited in the linked walkthroughs; this guide uses local copies for reliable access.
