Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies (2012) and its nine First Rooms: no Juggernog in reach, the Persistent Upgrade, Quick Revive room by room, Bus Depot against TranZit, Nuketown with no window, Afterlife and Brutus, the maps, modes, Victis, new perks and Wonder Weapons.
PlatformsXbox 360PlayStation 3WindowsWii U (November 18, 2012)PS4 and PS5 (2026)
Zombies maps6 named maps6 mode sub-maps
Map packsRevolutionUprisingVengeanceApocalypse
ModesTranZitSurvivalGriefTurned
First Rooms here9 leaderboards
Black Ops II is the game that took Zombies apart and put it back together. The mode moved onto the multiplayer engine, which brought eight-player Grief and several game types; the original four gave way to a new crew; and maps stopped being one building around a power switch. There is a bus, two skyscrapers, a prison, a buried western town and a 1918 dig site, and three of the Survival maps are slices cut out of a bigger one.
For this site it is the game where the First Room changes from map to map more than anywhere else. One room has no perk at all, one has six within reach, one has no window to board, and one is not even entered with a gun in your hand.
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The First Room in Black Ops II
The arithmetic is the one of Black Ops: zombie health still climbs by 100 a round to round 9, then by 10% a round, never more than 24 zombies are on the map at once, and a player without Juggernog goes down on the second hit. What changes is what the starting areas hold.
No Juggernog machine within reach
On every Black Ops II board, the Juggernog machine is behind a door, in an elevator shaft or on the docks. Nuketown is the exception that proves it: Juggernog can land in the street there, and the board does not allow it to be bought.
The Juggernog upgrade
On TranZit, Die Rise and Buried, a Persistent Upgrade adds 90 health, so four hits instead of two. It is lost at round 15, and reconnecting to keep it is not allowed. Persistent Upgrades never work in Survival, so Bus Depot, Farm and Town never have it.
Quick Revive is not a given any more
In solo it still costs 500 and picks you up three times, but it stands in only some of the rooms. Farm has it outside the barn, Origins next to Generator 1, Nuketown drops it into the street a few seconds into round 1. Bus Depot, Town, Die Rise and Buried have none in reach, TranZit’s needs the power, and Mob of the Dead has no Quick Revive at all.
The same scale of points
10 a hit, 60 for a torso kill, 100 for a headshot, 130 for a melee kill, and 10 a plank for repairs, capped at 490 a round.
Three rooms work differently from everything in Black Ops. Nuketown has no boarded window at all, so there is nothing to repair and no Carpenter in the game, and its perk machines fall from the sky onto random spots. Mob of the Dead starts with every player in Afterlife, as a ghost with no weapon, and the first doors of the cell block are opened with an Afterlife shock rather than with points; Brutus arrives on his own schedule and locks whatever machine he walks past. Die Rise has no perk machine in reach: the only perks of a First Room game come from a Jumping Jack round cleared without missing a single shot, which drops a free perk bottle.
The three Green Run Survival maps were built as three steps of difficulty. In Treyarch’s design, Bus Depot has only the Mystery Box and a cramped space, Farm adds perks and room but no Pack-a-Punch, and Town is wide open with every basic utility. The First Rooms follow the same order: Bus Depot’s hall has two wall guns and nothing else, Farm’s yard and barn have Quick Revive and Double Tap, and Town’s street has Stamin-Up, Double Tap and a Pack-a-Punch that works from round 1.
Bus Depot and TranZit are the same room. The bus station hall is the start of both, with the M14 and the Olympia on its walls. In Survival nothing can be built and there is no power, so the two metal doors on the garage side stay shut. In TranZit the hall also holds Quick Revive, the three parts of the Turbine and a workbench, and Persistent Upgrades are live. Same walls, two boards.
ZFRR ranks nine Black Ops II First Rooms. Diner, Cell Block and Borough, which only exist in Turned or Grief, have no board. Every one of the nine has a Hub wiki.
TranZit
The bus depot hall under TranZit rules, four windows, the M14 and the Olympia, Quick Revive on the power, the Turbine parts on the floor. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Depot
The same hall in Survival, two wall guns and no perk at all; in solo the first down is the last. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Farm
The yard and the two-floor barn, the Olympia, Double Tap upstairs, Quick Revive outside; the official board is played without the Mystery Box. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Town
The street, the richest First Room of the game, with Stamin-Up, Double Tap, the Pack-a-Punch in the lava pit and a Box spot, but no Juggernog and no Quick Revive. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Nuketown
The street between the two houses, no window to board, perks falling from the sky. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Die Rise
An office floor high in the first tower, one window up on the gallery, one at the back, the Olympia only, and a side open on the void. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Mob of the Dead
The cell block, metal walkways, tight corners, doors that only Afterlife opens, and Brutus. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Buried
Processing, a walkway around a pit with three windows and no door, the only way out a hole in the floor. Leaderboard · Map wiki
Origins
The two-level starting room, Generator 1, Quick Revive once it runs, the M14 and a Ballista, and the reward box. Leaderboard · Map wiki
A few pages keep unofficial boards next to the official one: With Box on Farm, Semtex on Town, Ray Gun and Quick Side on Buried. They carry no coefficient and score no ranking points.
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The maps
Six named maps, and six sub-maps cut out of them for a single mode. Xbox 360 got every map pack first; PlayStation 3 and PC followed about a month later.
Northern France, 1918. Six generators instead of a power switch, four elemental staffs, giant robots, the Panzer Soldat, a tank.
Nuketown Zombies came with the Hardened, Care Package and Digital Deluxe editions on launch day, then with the Season Pass, before going on sale on its own in 2013.
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Modes
Black Ops II was the first Zombies to split the mode into separate game types. Every board on ZFRR is played in the round-based ones.
TranZit
The big round-based map and its story, the one TranZit, Die Rise and Buried belong to.
Survival
Plain survival on a reduced map, with no buildables, no quest and no Persistent Upgrades. Bus Depot, Farm, Town and Nuketown.
Grief
Two teams of four on the same map, surviving against each other without shooting each other. Farm, Town, Cell Block and Borough.
Turned
From the Revolution pack. The players start as zombies, and the first one to reach the cure becomes the human the others hunt. No perk, no Box, no Pack-a-Punch. Diner and Borough.
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The crews
V
Victis
Samuel J. Stuhlinger, Abigail “Misty” Briarton, Marlton Johnson and Russman, survivors of the world Richtofen destroyed at the end of Moon. They play TranZit, Die Rise and Buried, and they are the only main crew of the series brought together by chance.
C
CIA and CDC agents
The silent, nameless teams of the Survival and Grief maps, Nuketown included.
T
The Mob of the Dead inmates
Albert “Weasel” Arlington, Michael “Finn” O’Leary, Salvatore DeLuca and Billy Handsome, voiced by Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, Chazz Palminteri and Ray Liotta.
P
Primis
Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen as they are in 1918, on Origins. They are not the Black Ops four but other versions of them, and they carry the story into Black Ops III.
Richtofen is everywhere without being playable: he is the announcer of TranZit, Die Rise and Buried, heard by Samuel alone, while Dr. Ludvig Maxis talks to everyone.
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Perks
Five new ways to spend points, and one perk that almost disappears. PhD Flopper has no machine to buy on any round-based map of Black Ops II: it is seen on Die Rise and Mob of the Dead without being reachable, it is a Persistent Upgrade on Buried, a Wunderfizz result on Origins, and a real machine only in Cell Block Grief.
Perk
Debut
Cost
Effect
Tombstone Soda
TranZit
2,000
When downed, leave a Tombstone and come back next round to pick up your perks and weapons. Not available in solo.
Who’s Who
Die Rise
2,000
When downed, play a double who can go and revive your own body. In solo, going down as the double ends the game.
Electric Cherry
Mob of the Dead
2,000
An electric shock around you on every reload.
Vulture Aid
Buried
3,000
Zombies drop ammo, and points of interest show through walls.
Der Wunderfizz
Origins
1,500
Not a perk but a machine that hands out a random one.
The four-perk limit stays, and Black Ops II adds ways around it: Tombstone on TranZit, the Jumping Jack bottle on Die Rise, the ghost’s piano on Buried, the empty bottles dug up on Origins. Double Tap becomes Double Tap 2.0, which also doubles bullet damage.
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Persistent Upgrades
Perk-like effects earned by hidden criteria, kept from one game to the next and lost by the opposite behaviour. They only work online, and only on TranZit, Die Rise and Buried. Two matter for a First Room:
Juggernog
Die three times, without Quick Revive, before round 3. It adds 90 health and is lost on reaching round 15.
Ray Gun wall buy
The Olympia on the wall hands out a Ray Gun for the same 500 points. It is banned on the official Die Rise and Buried boards; Buried keeps a separate, unofficial Ray Gun board for it.
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Wonder Weapons
Black Ops II made Wonder Weapons something you build or earn rather than something the Box gives you. In a First Room game almost all of them are out of reach.
Jet Gun
TranZit. Built from four parts, sucks zombies in, and breaks when it overheats.
Sliquifier
Die Rise. Built; fires a purple liquid that kills, and leaves puddles that players and zombies slip on.
Blundergat
Mob of the Dead. A blunderbuss earned through a quest, which can become the Acid Gat.
Ray Gun Mark II
Vengeance. A three-round burst Ray Gun, added to maps that had already shipped.
Paralyzer
Buried. Freezes zombies in place, and lets its holder fly short distances.
Elemental Staffs
Origins. Fire, Ice, Wind and Lightning, each built and upgraded through its own quest.
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Trivia
“Twice as many zombies” was part of how Black Ops II was announced. What doubled was the player count, from four to eight in Grief; the cap stays at 24 zombies at once.
Black Ops II was the first Call of Duty on the Wii U, available on the console’s launch day in North America, Europe and Australia.
Leroy’s real name is Arthur. Leroy is the community’s name for the giant of Buried.
Origins brings back the original four, but as Primis, other versions of them from 1918. Their only appearance in the game.
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