Call of the Dead

"A shipwrecked crew of fearless explorers is hopelessly stranded in an abandoned Siberian outpost. Their dream of discovering the true origins of the Element 115 unravels into a hellish nightmare."

- Call of the Dead level description.

Call of the Dead is the ninth Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies map. Treyarch called it "a unique Zombies experience" and is "a very special creation for all Zombie fans". The level is the first to feature actual celebrities fighting the zombies and features George A. Romero as one of the zombies. The map takes place on a ship, a lighthouse and the land next to them.

Overview
"It's anchors away for mayhem! In this epic tale of survival inspired by legendary writer and director George A. Romero, a group of four fearless explorers fight for their lives amidst an army of bloodthirsty Russian zombies. The story begins with our heroes stranded in the frozen wastelands of a forgotten Siberian outpost. On the hunt for the origins of the enigmatic Element 115, they head for the site of an ancient meteorite impact crater but their ship mysteriously runs aground. In the midst of a horrific snowstorm, our intrepid adventurers inadvertently unleash an unearthly horde of ravenous Zombies. From the island's deserted lighthouse to a shipwrecked ocean liner and a precarious zip-line in between, it's kill or be killed. And with shiploads of zombie Russian soldiers, scuba divers and sailors that rise out of the frozen ground and icy waters it's not going to be easy, especially considering the deadly surprise that one particular (and somewhat notable) Zombie has in mind."

- Call of the Dead plot summary

Call of the Dead is the second largest zombie map after Moon, with multiple areas. Players spawn on the shore with up to three other teammates with George Romero spawning out of a lightning bolt in a nearby pool of water. There are two chalk weapon outlines there, as with the last three Black Ops zombie maps, the Olympia and the M14. Players can choose to open one of two different boats to clear, both costing 750 points. One leads to the lighthouse, and the other leads to the broken ship. The power switch is located at the top of the ship, which has the Flinger on the side of the second floor.

A new perk, Deadshot Daiquiri, is located at the very top of the lighthouse, with a price of 1500 points. It causes the aim-assist when aiming down the sights to auto-focus on the head as opposed to chest, as well as decreasing recoil and having the effects of Steady Aim. Also, when using a sniper rifle, there is no sway. The Matryoshka Doll returns from Ascension, alongside a new Wonder Weapon, the V-R11 makes its debut in this map, with the ability to transform Zombies back into humans, with them then running away in fear and getting frozen afterward in the cold water (or killed by the player), along with the ability to calm George (temporary) and to make teammates do infinite damage and not be harmed by zombies. Another new weapon is Scavenger; a bolt-action sniper rifle that shoots explosive bolts dealing very high damage.

When George A. Romero appears at the first round he appears in a "Calm State", slowly walking towards the player while shouting threats. He also appears to have extremely high amount of health of 250,000 per player in the game (i.e. he has 250,000 health in solo, 500,000 with two players etc.). Damaging him or allowing him to hit a player triggers his "Berserk Mode", causing him to first shout and then chase the nearest person wildly attacking and spontaneously roaring and growling. He calms down if he is lured back into water. The player gets 10 points for shooting him when he is calm and out of the water. However, doing so will anger him. Contrary to popular belief, the V-R11 does not turn George A. Romero back into a human, only managing to turn him back into his "Calm State" for a period of time. Using the Pack-a-Punched V-R11 on him while he is mad will turn him back into his Calm State until he is provoked again in the water which makes him disappear for a limited amount of time, after which he comes back. The players can kill George, though doing so will take time and effort. The players are rewarded with a Random Perk Bottle and a Death Machine (or a Lightning Bolt in certain circumstances), and George will go back into water for the current and the following round. He then comes back in a random pool with full health.

The map also features the Original Characters Trapped in a small dark room, after Richtofen apparently influenced the Kassimir Mechanism to teleport all of them to this Siberian outpost. Richtofen exclaims that they were sent too far into the future during the easter egg. Freeing the original characters serves as the map's major Easter egg and gives the Lightning Bolt Power-up, granting the player a Wunderwaffe DG-2. Having no further need for it, Richtofen leaves it for the celebrities.

Opening Scene Transcript
The screen is black and George A. Romero can be heard speaking.

Romero: "Well. I've always liked the "monster within" idea. I like the zombies being us. It's like zombies are the blue-collar monsters."

''The lighthouse appears on the screen with a flash of lightning behind it. Zombies start to attack Danny Trejo and Robert Englund and both of them try to fight them off.''

Trejo: "We're completely surrounded!"

Englund: "We're completely fucked!"

Englund is stabbing a zombie with his pitchfork and Michael Rooker is then seen killing zombies with two Sawed-Off Shotguns.

Rooker: "Are you girls kidding me? I've been praying for this shit! Come on!"

A door to the lighthouse opens behind Rooker, and Sarah Michelle Gellar kicks a zombie corpse down the stairs that lead to the door.

Gellar: "Boys... let's get to work."

''Action music starts playing and all four characters continue killing zombies. A zombie comes to attack Rooker from behind. Rooker turns around and attempts to hit the zombie on the shoulder. The zombie stops attacking, looks at the camera, and starts talking.''

Fake Zombie: "For God sakes, he missed me again!"

Romero: "Cut! Are you blind, man?"

Romero takes one of Rooker's shotguns and goes to Englund to demonstrate how Rooker was supposed to knock out the zombie for the movie.

Romero: "Like this."

Romero hits Englund in the face with the butt of the shotgun.

Englund: "OOOWWWW!"

Romero: "See?"

Trejo: "No jefe, I do it like this."

Trejo bunts the bottom of his machete on top of Englund's head.

Englund: "Danny!"

Gellar: "I do it like this."

''Gellar roundhouse kicks Englund in the chest, knocking him on his back. A zombie then comes out of a window prop.''

Romero: "Get back to hair and make-up. You don't look dead enough!"

A fake zombie attempts to take the real zombie by the shoulder to escort it to hair and make-up.

Fake Zombie: "Come on, let's go."

The real zombie throws the fake one to the ground, picks up Romero and runs away with him.

Rooker: "That ain't in the script."

Trejo: "''We're writing a new one! It's called "Maggot! Sack! Massacre!"''"

Englund: "This is a real nightmare!"

Englund stabs an approaching zombie with his pitchfork

Sarah stabs a zombie in the back with a sickle

Gellar: "Let's slay some stiffs!"

''Trejo slashes two zombies' necks, runs another zombie through and slits its neck. Gellar kicks an undead in the mouth as Englund stabs a zombie with his pitchfork and throws it onto the ground, stabbing it again to kill it. Rooker kills some zombies with his shotguns, and shoots towards the camera as the film ends.''

Ending Scene Transcript
Romero: "Years ago I did research for a World War II movie. I came across some old Nazi documents. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Element 115, necromancers, raising from the dead, real creepy stuff. The coolest thing? Some of that crazy shit happened right here."

Zombie behavior
All the zombies in this map come from the crashed Russian ship, some scattered around the surroundings of the area and some still in and next to the ship. The Russian zombies do not sidestep or roll as they did in Ascension. This map features frozen zombies covered in seaweed, scuba divers with their masks on or off, and Russian soldiers in green uniforms speckled in snow. These zombies can sprint when George emits a special yell. They are the only zombies able to stun the player with electricity, aside from George Romero. These zombies slow down heavily in water, and if damaged they can freeze to death in it.

Zombies can also become electrified. Electric Zombies have a slight blue aura around them and an electric pulse visible encircling them. They are caused when George A. Romero hits his spotlight on the ground or yells (which causes sprinters as well), making the zombies electrified. If the player is attacked by an electrified zombie, their movement will be momentarily slowed and an electric shock will go across the screen (much like being hit by George's spotlight or going through an electric trap).

New features

 * Double Tap Root Beer returns after its absence in Ascension.
 * Scavenger, a new sniper rifle that shoots extremely powerful explosive bolts.
 * This is the first Zombies map to only have one window in the spawn room (though the zombies do spawn from the ground).
 * It has two Ziplines: one goes from the ship to the coast and the other goes from the lighthouse to the ship.
 * George A. Romero guest stars as a special zombie but instead of having his own round, he will appear at Round 1 and will follow the player until he is dealt with.
 * Call of the Dead features the first female playable character in Zombies and the second playable female character in the Call of Duty series.
 * All of the original Perk-a-Cola machines and a new one called Deadshot Daiquiri are available on this map.
 * The Flinger flings players off the ship and onto the bottom of the lighthouse.
 * A new Wonder Weapon called the V-R11 turns a zombie back to its human state.
 * Water on the map will cause frost to accumulate on the player's screen, blinding and eventually freezing the player. It also over time will act on Zombies much in the same way as the Winter's Howl freezing them in blocks of ice allowing them to be easily shattered. When encased in ice a hit from a player or zombie will free them from the ice.
 * The Lighthouse's beam will showcase where the Pack-A-Punch Machine is on the map once the power is turned on. This is because it moves around the map.
 * The weather occasionally changes from snowing hard with a fog, to a light flurry with easy visibility. Whenever the weather changes, the player's character will make a comment on it.
 * A large lightning cluster will happen when the Pack-A-Punch Machine is leaving or entering a location.
 * This is the only map where the Wunderwaffe DG-2 is available as the Lightning Bolt.
 * An Ice Slide that leads to the Sickle and Speed Cola.

New perk
Deadshot Daiquiri is a perk featured in Call of the Dead, Shangri-La and Moon. The perk's icon consists of a black background color with the foreground being a head in front of a set of cross-hairs. The perk works in three different ways: it makes the cross-hairs smaller identically as Steady Aim, making sniper rifles have no idle sway and it works as improved aim assist; when the player would aim down the sights while looking near the zombie, it would lock to the head of the zombie, instead of chest. In PC, it only increases hip-fire accuracy similar to Steady Aim.

Deadshot Daiquiri Theme

Achievements/Trophies
Shooting on Location (20 / Bronze Trophy ) - Kill 10 zombies from 100 feet away with one Scavenger shot.

Stuntman (20 / Bronze Trophy ) - Make a zombie explode with the V-R11.

Quiet on the Set (30 / Bronze Trophy ) - Cut the lights out on the Director.

Stand-in (35 / Bronze Trophy ) - Send the crew to Paradise in solo or co-op.

Ensemble Cast (45 / Silver Trophy ) - Send the crew to Paradise in co-op.

Director's Cut
Call of the Dead: Director's Cut is an alternate version of the map which was released via an update for Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies on July 19th, 2012. Instead of Featuring the Celebrities that are on the original map, it Features Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, Takeo Masaki, and Edward Richtofen, because of this, the Original Characters Trapped Easter egg has been removed. the map has also been changed slightly.
 * The Window on top of the boat's exterior now has sandbags infront of it.
 * The Rock that filled up the gap in the Bridge that is in the spawn is gone.
 * Only half of the chalk marker for the M16 is present.
 * The rails on top of the boat's exterior are not solid, you can walk through them and fall off.
 * Some of the rocks are incomplete, leaving some parts of the rocks floating in the air.
 * The Scavenger is not currently present in this version

Videos
Video:Call of the Dead Intro and Outro Call of the Dead Intro and Outro

Trivia

 * That in the light house, if one where to look closely at the walls the blood splattered on it is in the shape of an elephant possibly referencing, Shang-grui La
 * All the major characters in this map are real life people.
 * The name of this map is a reference to both the title of the Call of Duty series and George A. Romero's "The Dead" trilogy of horror films.
 * This is the first map where the Pack-a-Punch Machine changes locations and the second in which the Pack-a-Punch Machine can become unavailable, the first being "Five".
 * There are five radios which feature Richtofen discussing various experiments. There are also four radios that play a part in the co-op version of Original Characters Trapped.
 * This is the second map not to have purchasable fragmentation grenades; Semtex takes its place. First is Dead Ops Arcade, which does not feature fragmentation grenades at all.
 * On one of the notice boards on Der Riese there is a picture of a crashed ship by a lighthouse.
 * This is the second map to feature real life playable characters, with the first map being "Five".
 * This is the first map since Verrückt to not have a special round where a different type of enemy appears.
 * Call of the Dead has no specific initial Mystery Box spawn point, so it spawns randomly every game. It will never, however, spawn in the starting room initially.
 * It is the third Zombies map to not include any purchasable traps at all, the first being Nacht der Untoten and the second being Dead Ops Arcade, although it seems the sentry gun trap was originally supposed to make appearance, as proven by the characters cut quotes.
 * All of the playable characters have unique first person models.
 * None of the weapons except for the Sickle in the beginning transcript can be used during gameplay.
 * This is the first official zombie map to feature friendly NPCs.
 * This is the only Black Ops map where provoking a zombie after round 4 will not make it sprint.
 * If the player goes far enough from an undamaged zombie, it will respawn near the player.
 * According to radios, this is a former Group 935 facility where Richtofen tested on the original characters.
 * If a zombie is killed in the water, it first is surrounded by an icing layer and will then explode into dust.
 * In the intro when Michael Rooker is shooting sawed off double barreled shotguns at the zombies, he fires five shots without reloading.