Dark Aether Story

Timeline

Key events in approximate story order. Uncertain dates are labeled — nothing here invents precision.

1980sconfirmed
The Dark Aether story begins (Die Maschine)
Requiem investigates a Dark Aether breach at the Morasko facility, launching the modern continuity.
Die Maschine
1984–1985confirmed
The Forsaken is contained — and the Director is unmasked
Requiem lures the Forsaken — the entity that was once Zykov — into containment, ending the Dark Aether crisis it spent the whole war chasing. The reward: the senior staff are arrested on the orders of Requiem’s own unseen Director, revealed as Edward Richtofen.
Forsaken
1991confirmed
The Terminus breakout and Project Janus
Five years after taking the fall, the ex-Requiem team breaks out of the Terminus blacksite prison while a Dark Aether outbreak swallows Liberty Falls, West Virginia. Behind both stands Richtofen’s Project Janus — and the search for Samantha Maxis runs through the whole campaign.
Terminus Liberty Falls
After 1991confirmed
After Reckoning: stranded inside the Dark Aether
Black Ops 7 picks up after Reckoning with the story set inside the Dark Aether itself, where colliding timelines strand an eight-person crew in the wastes and a figure called the Warden commands the Shadowsmiths against them.
Ashes of the Damned

The Dark Aether story begins (Die Maschine)