Shi No Numa

Shi No Numa — the Swamp of Death — is where Zombies found its cast and its teeth. Released in World at War’s second map pack, it swaps corridors for open marsh around a two-storey main building and four outer huts, and introduces the four characters who would carry the story for a decade: Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Richtofen, the crew later named Ultimis. The undead here are Imperial Japanese soldiers, the first zombies in the series that were not Nazis.

The swamp and the huts

Everything radiates from the main building: four huts across the marsh — the Storage Hut, the Comm Room, the Doctor’s Quarters and the Fishing Hut — with the swamp itself as the hazard between them. Zombies wade through the water unbothered; players slow to a trudge, which is the map’s real trap.

Power: none needed

There is no power switch — everything on the map works from the first round. The electro-shock defences at each hut and the Flogger, the rotating log trap on the Fishing Hut path, only ever cost points, and a 1,500-point zipline runs from the Doctor’s Quarters back to the main building’s top floor.

Pack-a-Punch: one map early

No Pack-a-Punch exists here — the machine debuts on the next map, Der Riese. Only the later remasters (Zombies Chronicles, and the Vanguard reimagining) added one to the swamp.

Perks that move

All four World at War perks are here — Quick Revive, Jugger-Nog, Speed Cola and Double Tap — but none has a home. When a hut is first opened, a machine visibly shuffles through the possibilities before one settles there at random, one perk per hut, in a different arrangement every game.

Wonder weapon: the Wunderwaffe DG-2

Richtofen’s Wunderwaffe DG-2 debuts in the Mystery Box: chain lightning that arcs through up to ten zombies per bolt from a three-round magazine. The Box itself learns a new trick on this map — instead of cycling fixed spots it relocates at random, its position marked by a beam of light in the sky.

Hellhounds

Dog rounds debut here: every few rounds the fog rolls in, thunder cracks, and Hellhounds spawn from lightning strikes — fast, low, and often explosive in death. Clearing the round pays a Max Ammo, a rhythm the series has kept ever since.

Secrets

The Comm Room telephone starts the series’ first proper hidden song, "The One" — Kevin Sherwood and Elena Siegman’s debut collaboration for the mode. The radios matter more than the music: transmissions to an agent named Peter, laughter that whispers about Element 115, and coordinates that decode to Area 51 and Tunguska. As for the body hanging in the spawn room, missing its left forearm — that is Peter.

Story

The swamp holds the Rising Sun Facility, a joint Division 9 and Group 935 outpost built where Japan found Element 115 in the marsh. Takeo was sent by the Emperor to oversee it and ended up a test subject; the OSS sent Peter McCain in and he died before help arrived. The map’s events have Richtofen shepherding his newly-awakened "test subjects" here to recover his diary — the document his entire plan, and the next several years of the story, hang on.