Kino Der Toten
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Kino Der Toten was the first map to be shown off for Call of Duty: Black Ops, and takes place in an abandoned theater. Players will find themselves fighting their way through the lobby, to the seating area, to the backstage, and more. What made this map so cool was the sinister underbelly of the map – on the surface, you were just fighting zombies and upgrading your weapons in the process, but with time you’ll discover a much deeper purpose in this map. Every time you teleport to and from the Pack-A-Punch room, there’s a chance you’ll get teleported to one of three creepy locations – A dentist’s office, a conference room, and a little girl’s room (who many will know as Samantha by now). In these rooms, you can collect film reels which can be played on the theater’s main projector to unveil cryptic testing logs.
Aside from the cool little easter eggs, the map itself is a ton of fun. There are loads of new perks and camping spots for you to hold off against the undead horde – expect yourself to keep coming back to this classic.
Ascension
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
For a long time, Ascension was the absolute best CoD Zombies map (and it’s still considered that by many today). Being set on an abandoned USSR rocket testing facility, players will fend off waves of zombies around this facility, and find loads of cool little add-ons along the way. This map is amazing for many because it was the first to introduce a massive map-spanning easter egg, telling a mini-story within the map and adding to the wider lore of the Zombies mode.
Ascension also introduced a few new unlockables, which many consider to be classics – PhD flopper (which sadly was replaced in the Black Ops III version) was a favourite perk of many thanks to its ability to eliminate self-damage and cause explosions when you dive. The Gersch Device is a grenade-type weapon unlocked from the mystery box. When activated, a black hole opens, sucking all of the enemies into it for a time. There’s loads more for you to discover in this map, so give it a shot when you can!
Der Riese
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Der Riese was the final Zombies map of Call of Duty: World at War, and it quickly became one of everyone’s favorite maps (it’s been remade twice more for a reason). This is the map that introduced the Pack-A-Punch machine, the weapon upgrader that has since become a staple in every single map since. Back in the day, this was the go-to map for Zombies fans, and one of the reasons for this was that it brought in one of the coolest weapons ever to grace the mode – The Wunderwaffe DG-2. Everyone loved electrocuting zombies en-masse with this gun, which was great when you got a little overwhelmed in the later rounds.
If you haven’t player Der Riese, then you’re seriously missing out. It’s in three of Treyarch’s Call of Duty Games (World at War, Black Ops, and Black Ops III) so you’ve got plenty of opportunity to play the map where many of the Zombies staples were formed.
Der Eisendrache
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Der Eisendrache is the most recent map in this list, being brought in via a Black Ops III DLC. Some believe that the team behind Zombies may have lost their vision with Zombies towards the end, but if so, Eisendrache was a remarkable return to form. The map itself is an old Austrian castle, and you might find yourself easily getting lost in this vast map. If you play enough, you might be able to go through the complicated steps required to unlock a Wrath of the Ancients bow that will greatly improve your zombie-slaying ability. The map itself is incredibly varied, too – there’s the lab, which is something that looks like it could be straight out of Frankenstein’s Monster, the living quarters, which take on a creepy atmosphere if you examine the finer details, and the undercroft, a vast maze underneath the castle which occasionally disables its gravity. There are more, but we don’t want to spoil it all for you.
Der Eisendrache is an absolute pleasure to play – it’s not too complicated compared to some of Black Ops III’s other maps, but still has a layer of depth to it that let the best players really thrive.
Mob of the Dead
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Mob of the Dead is probably the scariest map on this list. It’s set in Alcatraz where you take on the role of one of four prisoners trying to fight off guards and your fellow inmates, all of whom have been infected with the zombie curse. The prison setting lends the map a claustrophobic feel; tight corridors wherever you go mean that you won’t have much room to breathe against the zombies here, but, as you progress and get outside, things will open up a little. Aside from the main objective to survive in this map, there is also a lot to discover – as you explore, you can find parts of a makeshift plane that you can use to finally make your way off the island – we won’t spoil what happens when you finally do.
This map is the finest Black Ops II has to offer (not to say the others aren’t good), and is definitely worth picking up and playing if you haven’t already. Sadly, it was never remade, so you’ll need Black Ops II and the DLC in order to play it.
Moon
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
The final Black Ops DLC saw players traveling somewhere nobody could’ve guessed: The Moon. This map takes advantage of some unique mechanics in order to make it an incredibly fun experience. The spacesuit is the only way you’ll be able to get through the map until you activate the power, and even then most locations are open to the vacuum of space, meaning low-grav combat is the way to go here. Aside from the spacesuit, occasionally giant drills will descend on the facility and block off parts of the map until you deactivate them. Locations in this map include the Moon’s surface (obviously), lots of labs, and a massive bio-sphere with plant life in abundance, making it a great place to go if you’re tired of the spacesuit for a while.
There’s so much to find in Moon, including the series’ grandest and most complex easter egg (at the time), so many Zombies veterans consider it a must-play map.
Origins
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Origins takes us back to before World War II, where we thought it all began, to the first World War, playing as younger incarnations of the main Zombies crew. You’ll have to fight through the trenches against zombies, taking into account the giant robots that walk across the map and could step on you at any time. Not quite how the First World War actually went, but alright. What made this map so good was the extreme variation in the map and the unlockable staffs that you could get for every member of your team – making your zombie-killing escapades much easier. This map also hides an underside, and a story that can be told through a super long and complicated easter egg. This time, though, completing the easter egg actually ends the map, making this the first time you can actually win a Zombies map.
Five
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Have you ever fight off zombies in the pentagon while dressed as Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, and John F. Kennedy? No? Well, now you can either way. Five was a bonus secret map that you unlocked for completing the Black Ops campaign, and it lets you and three other friends take on the zombie hordes as four of the biggest names of the Cold War in one of the US’ most important buildings. The map has three sections; a sophisticated office topside, a vast middle section full of computers, and a maze-like bottom layer where all the seedy testing goes on. If you want to Pack-A-Punch, you’ll need to hit the switches to descend from Def-con 5 to Def-con 1, which’ll unlock an office for you to upgrade weapons and give you a small respite from the horde.
Nacht Der Untoten
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
This is the map that started it all; a small, dimly lit house with nothing but you, zombies, and a lot of guns. There isn’t a lot that can be said about this map, but it’s a must-play purely because it’s the very roots of the Zombies mode, introduced all the way back in the base game of Call of Duty: World at War. This was before all the lore was introduced, meaning there’s nothing else to focus on except killing and surviving. The map’s been in a few games since, and received a few nice modernizations, but if you want the true experience your only option is to go all the way back to the original game. There is very little in the way of extra bonuses here; no Pack-A-Punch, no perks, and the only wonder weapon is the Ray Gun – it’s truly a barebones Zombies experience, which is precisely what makes it so good.
Call of the Dead
The Best CoD Zombies Maps of All Time
Call of the Dead is another map that lets you play as an unconventional set of characters; this time, famous actors in a huge Siberian outpost turned film set. There’s plenty to explore in this snowy wasteland – a huge destroyed freighter, the icy waters below it, and a massive lighthouse that towers over the entire map. All of it is cleverly linked together, allowing you to travel around the map quickly and easily. Don’t stay in one place for too long, though, otherwise you’ll be attacked by a zombified George A. Romero, an unkillable mega-zombie who can enrage and easily wipe your team. Visually, Call of the Dead is gorgeous, too – and the weather changes from clear to a blizzard at random, which greatly affects your visibility. It all comes together to make for a really satisfying and eerie experience.
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