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Call of the Dead BO3 Custom:
Easter egg

The main quest of Call of the Dead BO3 Custom step by step: the fuse and the four generators, the co-op vodka and foghorns, the radios and the submarine, the new dials of the lighthouse and their codes, the Golden Rod and the Wunderwaffe DG-2.

5 Min. Lesezeit
9 Kapitel
aktualisiert 2026-11-12

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Before starting

The main quest of Call of the Dead BO3 Custom follows the Easter egg of 2011: the four heroes of the Ultimis crew, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen, are locked in a room under PhD Flopper, and the actors must find them the Vril Device, the Golden Rod, so they can teleport to Shangri-La. It needs the power, the V-R11 from the Mystery Box and explosives such as Semtex grenades, sold for 250 points on the Juggernog side of the ship. Two steps are for co-op only; the rest is the same in solo and in co-op.

copforthat changed one step on purpose: the dials of the lighthouse turn in a new way, and their code is new. He says in his making-of video that he did it to make the step easier to understand, and regrets it, since players who knew the original were confused.

Step 1: the door and the fuse

Turn on the power at the top of the ship.
Go down to the locked metal door under PhD Flopper and knife it until the crew behind it speaks, and Richtofen asks for a fuse.
Upstairs, in the room of PhD Flopper, find the fuse: on the desk next to the machine, on the floor against a locker, or on a piece of furniture beside the beds.
Put it in the fuse box on the right of the door, and knife the door again.

A small blue fuse lying on a desk next to the PhD Flopper machine, Call of the Dead BO3 Custom, Call of Duty Black Ops III Zombies

The fuse

A small blue fuse on the desk next to PhD Flopper, one of its three spots.

The fuse box

Beside the metal door, with the fuse in place.

Step 2: the four generators

Nikolai lights up four generators around the map, each with a bright red light. Each one must be hit with an explosive, a grenade or the Scavenger, until its light goes out:

One in the room of the metal door, in front of it.
One by the MPL, outside the map, below the power room.
One in the shortcut that leads from the back half of the ship to the starting shore.
One outside a window of the Stamin-Up hut, behind the lighthouse.

Then knife the door again.

Step 3: the vodka, co-op only

In co-op, Richtofen asks for a bottle of vodka, frozen in a clump of ice that hangs from a railing: above the stairs down to PhD Flopper, above the stairs towards the AK-74u, near the M16 on the ship, or on the ledge between the two halves of the ship, near the MP40. One player knifes the ice while another stands right under it and picks the bottle up as it falls. It goes into the pipe on the left of the door. In solo, this step is skipped.

Step 4: the radios and the submarine

Activate four radios, in this order and against the clock: in the room under the power room, by the M16; on a barrel in the Stamin-Up hut; next to the GobbleGum machine by the MP40, near Mule Kick; on a locker in the room of the metal door. A Morse code then beeps across the map.
In the power room, turn the ship’s wheel twice to the right, to five o’clock, pull the first lever down once and the third lever down three times. A ship’s horn sounds and a submarine rises out of the sea.

The three levers of the power room above three compass dials, under the frosted window of the cabin, Call of the Dead BO3 Custom, Call of Duty Black Ops III Zombies

The levers

The three levers of the power room, above three compass dials, next to the ship’s wheel.

The guides do not agree on when the wheel and levers must be set: Neon Slice does it right after turning on the power, the others after the radios. MrDalekJD found it could be done at any time.

Step 5: the foghorns, co-op only

In co-op, four foghorns around the lighthouse and Speed Cola must be sounded in order, against the clock: the one by the small pool in front of the lighthouse, near the AK-74u; the one closest to Speed Cola; the one next to the AK-74u on the wall, by the entrance of the lighthouse; and the one by the rock in the middle of the Speed Cola area. Splitting the team between both sides helps. Ricktness, Flapix and MrTLexify mark it co-op only; Neon Slice says it can also be done in solo.

Step 6: the dials of the lighthouse

Four scraps of paper each give a colour and a number: purple in a lifebuoy on the floor near Double Tap, yellow on the floor near Juggernog, orange on the floor of the Stamin-Up hut and blue on the second floor of the lighthouse, by the blue dial, according to Neon Slice (Ricktness finds it by PhD Flopper). The four dials of the lighthouse are, from top to bottom, yellow, orange, blue and purple.

A scrap of paper

Tucked in a lifebuoy near Double Tap, with its colour and its number.

The yellow dial

At the top of the lighthouse, set on a brick wall.

Turning one dial also turns another: yellow turns blue, blue turns orange, orange turns purple and purple turns yellow. Flapix and Neon Slice give an order that always works: set yellow, then purple, then blue, then orange to their numbers, then set purple again. A green light then shines down the middle of the lighthouse.

The green light

Shining down the middle of the lighthouse, around the spiral staircase, once the code is right.

According to Flapix and a Reddit thread of January 2023, the code is always one of three, from top to bottom: 2745, 8576 or 6235.

Step 7: the Golden Rod

Shoot a zombie near the lighthouse with the V-R11. The human it becomes walks into the green light and floats up the lighthouse.
Kill it before it reaches the top: it takes a lot of damage, and Grave advises a Death Machine or explosives. Done right, it lies down and its eyes glow yellow.
Pick up the Golden Rod at the foot of the lighthouse, in the green light, and put it into the pipe on the left of the door.
When the fuse on the right of the door starts to spark, knife it. The crew teleports away.

A human shot with the V-R11 floating up the lighthouse in the green light, by the spiral staircase, Call of the Dead BO3 Custom, Call of Duty Black Ops III Zombies

The human in the light

Shot with the V-R11, a human floats up the middle of the lighthouse in the green light.

The reward

The metal door opens, which it never did in 2011: inside is the room where the crew was locked, and a Wunderwaffe DG-2 power-up. From then on, George drops a Wunderwaffe instead of a Death Machine every time he is beaten.

The golden Wunderwaffe DG-2 power-up floating in the room of the Ultimis crew, behind the opened metal door, Call of the Dead BO3 Custom, Call of Duty Black Ops III Zombies

The Wunderwaffe DG-2

The golden power-up floating in the room of the crew, behind the opened door.

A longer ending was planned. copforthat says the map scripts still describe it: after the quest, the light of the lighthouse would flash SOS to a passing ship, which would pick up the players and end the game, like the showdown of Mob of the Dead. It was cut to release the map before the end of 2022; the ship can still be seen passing in the distance.