- "The Essence Trap and the Memory Transference Station were developed to recover the memories from individuals who had succumbed to their Aetherium infections. When deployed near an infected creature, the trap siphons any remaining memories from its former human self."
- — Essence Trap Intel
The Essence Trap is a piece of Tactical equipment featured in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Zombies mode. It was released with the launch of Firebase Z on February 4th, 2021 with Season One Reloaded. It is a piece of gear developed by Omega Group utilized in trapping humans whom have fully succumbed to the effects of the Aetherium infections to recover their memories with the aid of the Memory Transference Station, if any memories can be recovered. It is thrown like C4, and activated by tapping the use key twice while a viable enemy is within range.
William Peck, in a drugged state during Maxis Potential unlocks both the Memory Transference Station which in turn unlocks the Essence Traps for the Requiem Strike Team.
Essence Traps are able to trap any standard Zombie, Armored Zombie, Heavy Zombie, Mimic or Mangler which are under 20% health within itself, which will start a countdown of three minutes until the device will self-destruct and let the enemy free. The Essence Trap can be taken to the Memory Transference Station and placed to attempt to recover a memory, which will kill the subject inside and possibly recover a memory or recover a corrupted one. Three specific Mimics must be captured to get required codes to continue the quest, though it is possible to capture a regular Zombie and use it to complete a small sidequest involving a Zombie Head for a free Perk. Any other memory obtained from the process is purely for world building.
A single Essence Trap appears during the Ravenov Implications Main Quest for Outbreak, within the bunker silos. It has been "modified" by taping a banana to it, and it is used to capture a glowing monkey holding one of the required missile launch keys. As the monkey cannot be damaged, and escapes into a vent if the player gets too close, they must throw the Trap near the monkey and wait for it to be enticed by the banana before activating the trap. The player then retrieves the key when the Trap is recovered, though the trap is destroyed in the process.
Within Mauer der Toten, it is revealed by Hugo Jager that the Essence Traps were based off a prototype device created by Projekt Endstation created to lure Tempest for harvesting.
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