Nacht der Untoten

Nacht der Untoten is the original Zombies map: one ruined bunker at an abandoned airfield, unlocked in 2008 by finishing World at War’s campaign. It began as a developer side project that was nearly cancelled, shipped as a hidden bonus, and invented the loop every later map inherits — points per hit, boarded windows, bought doors, and the Mystery Box gamble. The geometry is borrowed from the multiplayer map Airfield; the fiction is German-occupied Europe, a crashed Allied plane smouldering outside.

Layout

Three areas, and that is all: the starting room, the "Help" room — named for the word scrawled faintly on its door — and the upstairs floor. Two openings leave spawn, a thousand points each: the Help door and the rubble on the staircase. Every later map’s flow decision descends from that first choice.

Power and perks: there are none

The World at War original has no power switch, no perk machines, no traps and no electricity at all — nothing on the map needs turning on. Anyone searching for the Nacht power switch is thinking of a later map, or of the Black Ops remaster, which eventually added Mule Kick as the bunker’s single perk.

Pack-a-Punch: not yet invented

There is no Pack-a-Punch here either — the machine did not exist until Der Riese, two maps later. Upgrades on Nacht mean the wall-buy ladder and the Mystery Box, plus the upstairs Sniper Cabinet, a 1,500-point one-off that hands over a scoped Kar98k.

The Ray Gun

The first wonder weapon debuts in Nacht’s Mystery Box: the Ray Gun, 950 points a spin in its single fixed Help-room location — the box never relocates on this map. On Nacht the Ray Gun turns up unusually often in early pulls, which is part of why the gamble became a ritual.

Enemies and survival

Base zombies only — no Hellhounds (they arrive in Shi No Numa), no special rounds, no elite variants. Survival is chokepoint management: hold the upstairs or the Help room, keep the barricades honest, and accept that a bad Mystery Box streak is fatal in a way no later map allows.

The radio

The original has no quest and no hidden song — its one secret is a radio that plays a rotation of tracks when shot or knifed. The dedicated song "Undone" belongs to the Black Ops remaster, where shooting three explosive barrels starts it.

Story and afterlives

Four unnamed Marines hold the bunker in 1945 — the story came later, retroactively tying the crash to Element 115 convoys and recasting the crew as Ultimis in the Zombies Chronicles remaster. The bunker itself never stopped appearing: decaying in TranZit’s cornfield, serving as Revelations’ hub, and finally excavated as the heart of Die Maschine, where the Dark Aether saga begins on top of the place the whole mode started.