Der Eisendrache

Der Eisendrache is the first map of the Awakening pack and, for a lot of players, the best map Black Ops III produced. It is set in Griffin Castle above Werfen in Austria — a mountaintop fortress with a rocket test facility bolted onto it — and it gives you a bow that upgrades four different ways, a buildable that flattens a room, and a main quest that is genuinely achievable solo.

It is roughly half again the size of The Giant, and the layout rewards learning. Most of what follows is about where things are, because on this map knowing the geography is most of the difficulty.

Power

The power switch is in the Armory, mounted on the wall beside a bank of generators. From the tram station where you spawn you work up and right through the courtyard, across the long bridge, through the bedroom and then through the last and most expensive gate into the Armory.

There is no prerequisite beyond points for the doors. Jugger-Nog sits just past the gate in the underground tunnel and needs power on, so power is effectively your first objective on every run.

Pack-a-Punch

Pack-a-Punch needs power, and then it needs assembling. Three teleporter pads each hold a piece of the machine:

• The Bastion, near the Death Ray.
• The Undercroft, the underground pyramid chamber.
• The Rocket Platform, which you reach through the Undercroft teleporter for 500 points.

Interact at each pad and the piece lifts, electrifies and vanishes. The order does not matter — the machine builds itself at whichever pad you activate last. After that it rotates between the three locations between rounds, so check where it is before you commit to a long walk with 5000 points.

Wrath of the Ancients

The base bow is free, and getting it is the first thing most players do after power. Three dragon head statues need feeding: one in the courtyard near Double Tap above the tunnel to the underground lab, one at the back of Mission Control above the fireplace, and one in the Undercroft pyramid room across from the crafting bench.

Kill a zombie near a statue to wake it. It then levitates and eats corpses one at a time — kills made during a feed animation do not count, which is why this takes longer than people expect. Each statue wants eight, and turns back to stone and crumbles when it is full. Once all three are done the bow floats above the crate at the back of the Family Crypt. If you bleed out you can collect it again from the same spot.

The four elemental upgrades

Each upgrade is its own multi-step quest, and you can only work on one at a time. Several steps need Anti-Gravity, which you enable by standing on each of the four tiles around the pyramid until all four glow blue; it then re-triggers every few minutes.

Ragnarok DG-4 and the Rocket Shield

The Ragnarok DG-4 is a pair of gravity spikes: slam for an instant-kill electric shockwave, or plant it as a trap that suspends everything nearby, Panzersoldats included. You need it to enter the boss fight and it is the only thing that damages the boss, so it is not optional.

1. The first Panzersoldat drops a part when you kill it. That means round 12 at the earliest. Miss the pickup and the next Panzer drops it again.
2. A part floats above the Bastion once the Death Ray has been fired at least once. It is either on the orb above the door to the power switch or behind the Wundersphere, and you have to grab it mid-flight — press interact while you are still airborne.
3. The third comes from a rocket test. Pull the lever at the bottom of the left staircase behind the rocket, sprint into the tunnel before the test kills you, then wait until all three console lights are solid green and interact. The window is short, and solo you will usually need a second test.

Build it at the workbench beside the pyramid in the Undercroft. The Rocket Shield is the map’s other buildable — three parts across the Upper Courtyard, the Undercroft and the Lower Courtyard, built at the Undercroft bench or the one above Double Tap. Killing ten or more zombies across twelve consecutive bursts upgrades it to the Goddard Apparatus.

The main quest

My Brother’s Keeper is the map’s main Easter egg. Before it will accept any input you need one upgraded bow per player, the Ragnarok built, and the Death Ray fired at least once.

The full walkthrough — every step, what confirms it, and what resets when it fails — is in the dedicated guide.

Panzersoldat and the boss fight

The Panzersoldat first appears on round 12 and returns every five or six rounds after that. This map’s version has a flamethrower on one arm and an electric cannon on the other, replacing the grappling claw it had on Origins. The cannon only fires while it is stationary; the flamethrower it can use on the move. It downs a Jugger-Nog player in two melee hits and an unbuffed player in one.

The bow is very effective against it, a Pack-a-Punched shotgun kills it fast, and the Death Ray both stuns and damages it. During the Easter egg a Panzersoldat spawns every single time you return from the past, whatever the round — so be somewhere you can fight before you teleport back.

The Corrupted Keeper boss fight runs five phases in a circular arena with glowing blue pillars. The attack that matters is an arena-wide electric shockwave that instantly downs anyone it touches regardless of perks; the pillars are the only cover. Just before it fires, a ball of electricity appears under the Keeper — that is your window to plant the Ragnarok and expose the rend on its chest.

Perks

Six machines: Jugger-Nog (2500), Quick Revive (500 solo, 1500 in co-op), Speed Cola (3000), Double Tap Root Beer (2000), Stamin-Up (2000) and Mule Kick (4000). Der Wunderfizz adds Deadshot Daiquiri, Electric Cherry and Widow’s Wine on a random roll for 1500.

• Double Tap increases the bows’ rate of fire but not their damage.
• Mule Kick is unusually valuable here — it lets you carry a bow, an anti-Panzer weapon and a boss-damage weapon at once.
• Nine perks exist on the map in total, which is exactly what completing the Easter egg awards. It does not raise your perk slot cap, and you still lose everything when you go down.

Getting your bearings

Named areas worth knowing: the Tram Station at spawn, the Lower and Upper Courtyards, the Gate Trap room beside Double Tap, the Trophy Room, the Clock Tower, the Barracks hallway, the Church and Mission Control where Speed Cola sits, Samantha’s Room, the Armory with the power switch, the Bastion with the Death Ray, the Family Crypt where the bow appears, the Undercroft with the pyramid and workbench, and the Rocket Platform.

Utilities: the Death Ray (1000), the Gate Trap (1500), four Wundersphere launch pads (500 each, and each needs its landing pad activated first), and two MTD teleporters (500) running between the Undercroft lab and the rocket launch pad.