- For other uses, see Zombie.
- For the Call of Duty: Mobile character, see Édouard "Templar" Couteau.
- "You should not have disturbed the graves of the Ancients!"
- — Takeo Masaki, after seeing the main tomb in Origins
The Ancients, seen in game as Templar Zombies and Crusader Zombies, are a faction in the Zombies Aether Saga. They consisted of the various Knights that fought in The Great War, alongside the Keepers and Primis, against the Apothicons.
In game, the Templars and Crusaders appear as Zombie variants that appear in the map Origins. They typically behave as regular Zombies, except for a few specific circumstances.
Appearance[]
The Templar Zombies have medieval helmets similar in appearance to the golden helmet and have a white-red uniform with a small Black-Sun sigil in the middle of the cross. They also have either a small pouch or a sheathed sword attached to their belts. Some also have grey beards. In the Origins intro their eyes are colored in bright Purple-Blue. In Black Ops II, they gain blue eyes, while in Black Ops III, they retain the normal orange eyes that the rest of the Zombies possess.
The Crusader Zombies have crowns on their heads and have a large glowing Black-Sun sigil in the middle of the armor. In addition to their knight garb and sword, they appear to have blue electricity running through their veins, while their eyes shine in a Purple-Blue color. They also appear to be mutated somewhat, with razor sharp teeth.
Gameplay[]
Typically, both Templar and Crusader Zombies spawn as additions to the regular Zombie horde. Templars only spawn in the Elemental Staff Tunnels and in the main chamber under the Pack-a-Punch Machine in the Excavation Site. When they spawn they can join in with a horde of standard zombies. Crusaders spawn regularly in the Crazy Place. Both variants provided the same amount of points for hits and kills as regular Zombies.
There are other instances where either variant can spawn, often with certain modifications to standard gameplay. Templar Zombies will spawn when the players activate a 115 Generator, coming out of blue portal holes in the ground. The Zombies keep spawning until the generator's activation bar has been filled. During the generator encounter, players get 10 points for each killed Templar, for the first 10 kills per group that spawn, totalling 100 additional points per generator. After the tenth Templar is killed, any further Templars will reward 0 points, but will still count as a kill. They will not yield 10 points if shot non-lethally unlike standard zombies, and they do not count towards the 115 headshots required for the challenge in Rituals of the Ancients.
On a different occasion, every few rounds a bunch of Templar Zombies will spawn through the blue portal holes to attack one the 115 Generators, attempting to shut it down. To prevent this, the player has to kill all of the Zombies that attack the generator before the generator's bar goes down. Successfully preventing the attack will reward the players with a Max Ammo that drops from the last killed zombie. Failing to prevent the attack will lead the zombies to attack other generators.
Background[]
The Great War as portrayed on the Shadows of Evil wallrun.
The Templar Zombies have on their chests the same symbol as the Keepers; the Black Sun. According to the Zombies Chronicles timeline, the zombies emerging from the tombs are undead knights from The Great War. Origins' main chamber was constructed by the Crusaders in order to honor the fallen warriors of The Great War, and further features statues of Primis bearing the same symbol of the Black Sun.
According to a radio from Ludvig Maxis, the 115 Generator's conversion process creates the portals from which the Crusader Zombies arrive, the portals are described as "localized energy fields".
The same Primis statues from Origins can be found in the map Der Eisendrache, built by the Wolf King, which has fought with many knights on the battlefields of The Great War. One of them, Sir Pablo Marinus, describes himself as a knight returning from the Crusades, which matches with the Templar Knights themselves.
There are several features named after the Ancients, such as Rituals of the "Ancients" in Origins, the wonder weapon Wrath of the Ancients in Der Eisendrache, and Trials of the Ancients in Zetsubou No Shima.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Crusader Zombies, while having the same animations as regular zombies, make different and more mechanized sounds compared to actual growls.
Shangri La's loading screen
- The Black Sun symbol makes an appearance on the chalkboards from Der Riese and The Giant, under the name 'Schwarze Sonne', which translates to Black Sun from German.
- The garden seen in Shangri-La's loading screen, seems to be in the shape of the Black Sun, where the vortex comes right from the middle of the symbol.
- According to Primis Richtofen, Samantha in Origins had a message from the Ancients. The content of the Ancients' messages is not known.
