Call of the Dead

Call of the Dead strands a crew of horror-film celebrities on a frozen Siberian coastline around a wrecked Group 935 freighter and a lighthouse, with the director George A. Romero stalking the decks as a living boss. It is a large, vertical map built around ziplines and that lighthouse, and it is a key beat in the original Ultimis storyline.

Power

The power switch is up on the ship, on the top deck near the bridge on the right-hand side of the map. Throwing it brings the perks and traps online and, crucially, activates the lighthouse beam — which is how you find Pack-a-Punch.

Pack-a-Punch

Pack-a-Punch has no fixed home here. Once power is on, the rotating lighthouse beam periodically stops and marks the machine, which relocates around the map over the course of a game. You follow the light to wherever it has settled — a small ritual that makes upgrading a weapon a deliberate trip rather than a quick detour.

Wonder weapons

Two wonder weapons come out of the Mystery Box. The V-R11 turns a zombie back into a human — removing it as a threat and, tellingly, drawing George toward the new human; a Pack-a-Punched V-R11 fired at George calms him. The Scavenger is a bolt-action explosive sniper that clears crowds at range. The returning Gersch Device and Matryoshka Dolls are also here, but you can only carry one tactical type at a time, so picking one swaps out the other.

Perks

Deadshot Daiquiri debuted on this map, its machine tucked on the lighthouse balcony; in Black Ops it snaps your aim to the head down sights and steadies your hip-fire. The usual line-up — Quick Revive, Jugger-Nog, Speed Cola, Double Tap and more — is spread from the spawn courtyard to under the stern of the ship. Mule Kick arrived later, added to the map by the Rezurrection patch rather than present at launch.

George A. Romero

George is a wandering mini-boss present from the first round, dragging a stage spotlight he swings as a weapon. He has two states — a slow, blue-aura Calm and a sprinting Berserk that he enters when hit or when he hits a player — and his spotlight colour tracks his health. He does not have to be killed and cannot be put down for good: beaten, he leaves for a round or two and returns. The simplest ways to shake this enemy are a Pack-a-Punched V-R11, which calms him, or luring him into the water, which submerges him for a while.

The main quest

The map’s easter egg — "Stand-in" solo, "Ensemble Cast" in co-op — frees the original crew (Richtofen, Dempsey, Takeo and Nikolai) trapped behind a locked door. The heart of it is the V-R11: turn a zombie human at the foot of the lighthouse so it is pulled up the interior tractor-beam, then knock it down before it reaches the top, which drops the Golden Rod at the base of the stairs. Deliver the Golden Rod to the trapped crew to complete it; afterward, killing George drops a Wunderwaffe DG-2.

Story

The playable crew are exaggerated versions of Danny Trejo, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Robert Englund and Michael Rooker, shipwrecked at a former Richtofen laboratory in Siberia. In freeing Ultimis they hand the original crew the Golden Rod — a component of the Vril Device that Richtofen’s scheme needs — so the map bridges Ascension and Shangri-La on the way to the storyline’s climax on Moon.