Shadows of Evil

Shadows of Evil is the Black Ops III launch map and the most deliberately disorienting one in the series. Four flawed strangers wake in Morg City, a 1940s noir town already well into being eaten by something older than it, and almost nothing here works the way it does on other maps.

The two things to internalise before you load in: there is no power switch, and Pack-a-Punch is at the end of a long ritual chain rather than behind a door. Plan for both and the map opens up. Ignore them and you will spend twenty minutes wondering why nothing turns on.

Power

There is no master switch. Every powered device — each perk machine, each blocked staircase — has its own fuse box beside it, and you shock it in Beast Mode. Once shocked it stays on for the rest of the match.

That makes Beast charges the real currency of the early game. Solo you bank up to three and refill one per round. In co-op you get exactly one per player per round, and the pedestals are shared — once anyone uses one it goes dull for the rest of that round. Decide which fuse box each transformation is for before you change.

Pack-a-Punch

Pack-a-Punch is the reward for five rituals. First find the Summoning Key: as the Beast, smash the crate on the truck bed in the spawn alley, then collect it in human form. One key serves every ritual and any player can carry it.

Rituals can be done in any order and any character can run any of them. Starting one locks the room, so gather the squad first — anyone outside cannot get in. The second and fourth rituals you finish each spawn a Margwa, which is ordinal rather than tied to a particular altar.

With all four Gateworms in hand, head to the Sacred Place in the Rift. Place the two pedestals on the entry side first: they raise the walls you wallrun across to reach the far pair. Then run the fifth ritual with the Summoning Key. Pack-a-Punch opens as a blue rift, 5,000 for the first upgrade and 2,500 to re-pack for an elemental — which does not refill your ammo.

Apothicon Servant

The Servant fires a black hole that pulls zombies in and kills them outright regardless of round. Three parts, each gated differently, and the gates are the whole difficulty.

• Margwa heart — the first Margwa you kill always drops it. Left on the ground it despawns, but the next Margwa drops a replacement, so it is not missable.
• Margwa tentacle — only from purple, fully-ripened Harvest Pods, and you cannot open any pod without a Fumigator. One Fumigator spawns per district and every player needs their own. Pods ripen over rounds, so opening them early wastes them.
• Xenomatter — from Parasites or Insanity Elementals, and only from round 13. No amount of killing produces it earlier.

Build it at any of the three workbenches: behind the gym in the Waterfront, in front of the Ruby Rabbit in the Canals, or below the train station in Footlight. Building it also adds copies to the Mystery Box pool.

The Apothicon Sword

Once Pack-a-Punch is open, the sword is the map’s second wonder weapon and the prerequisite for the main quest. Ride the tram to spot three backlit symbols — one per leg, randomised every match — then shock those three on the nine-symbol wall in the Rift as the Beast. A wrong symbol resets the wall and hides the symbols until the next round.

Take an Egg from the revealed statue and charge it at four Apothicon statues, roughly twelve souls each. Every player charges their own Egg, but one statue can charge all four at once.

The main quest

Apocalypse Averted needs every player carrying an upgraded Reborn Keeper Sword. After that it runs through a flag defence — carried from the Rift to two marked spots in each district, one district per round — and then the Shadowman fight, where the four Keepers strip his shield and you drive him onto the summoning table.

Perks

Seven machines, each behind its own fuse box. Quick Revive (1,500, or 500 solo) is in the spawn alley, Stamin-Up (2,000) in the Junction, and Widow’s Wine and Mule Kick (4,000 each) are down in the Rift.

One quirk worth knowing: the Death Machine power-up will not drop until somebody has bought Quick Revive. On a map with no power switch, that purchase is the only thing that unlocks it.

Margwas and the rest

The Margwa is the map’s signature problem: three heads, each only damageable while its mouth is open and glowing. All three are open the instant it spawns, so a shotgun burst on arrival can end it before it moves. Every head you destroy pays 500, releases a Parasite, and makes it faster.

• It is immune to Insta-Kill and Nuke, shields itself from the Servant’s black hole, and destroys a Rocket Shield instantly.
• A slam downs a player without Jugger-Nog outright.
• They arrive naturally from round 8, plus on the second and fourth rituals, the final ritual, and every sword upgrade circle.
• Parasites get their own round and obscure your view; shoot the red ground mist to kill Insanity Elementals before they even land.

Getting your bearings

Morg City is a central Junction with three districts off it — Canals, Waterfront and Footlight — plus the Rift underneath, which is a separate layer holding Pack-a-Punch, Widow’s Wine, Mule Kick and the sword statue. The tram runs between the three district stations but does not stop at the Junction.

For training, the Ruby Rabbit’s top balcony and the Footlight car park are the two spots players name most often — the first tight and defensible, the second open enough to handle a Margwa. Neither is documented anywhere official; treat them as consensus rather than fact, and keep a second, more open area in reserve, because most good camping spots are far too tight for a Margwa slam.