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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies Guide - How to complete The Tomb's Easter egg

Ready to tick off the latest Zombies map's hardest challenge? We have you covered.

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Now that the second season of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is here, many of you have likely flocked back to Treyarch's title to experience the second post-launch Zombies map, with this known as The Tomb. This tricky and tight map, like its counterparts, features a challenging Easter egg narrative at its heart, and since it has many moving parts required to overcome it, we've cooked up this handy guide to show you how to do it step-by-step.

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Step 1: Unlock the Dark Aether area and Pack-a-Punch

This is the easiest step of the bunch, as you'll simply need to open the doors that form a circular flow around the map and reach the altar opposite to where you spawn. Once you do, you can interact with the crystal on the altar to activate a portal that takes you into the fantastical Dark Aether realm where you will first find the powerful Pack-a-Punch machine.

While this is the entirety of this step completed, there are a few additional things you can do during this phase to help further down the line.

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  1. Activate the Rampage Inducer at the start of the game and use it to rack up as many points as possible before turning it off at the end of Round 7. Why this round? See Step 2.

  2. Open every door around the map as soon as you can, as you'll need to visit each part of the map a few different times and having a free-flowing path to explore will make this infinitely easier.

  3. Get Tier 2 armour plates and Juggernog as quickly as possible, and keep some money left over to snag a Pack-a-Punch upgrade for a weapon too.

  4. Imbue your weapon with an ammo mod, and if needed, improve its rarity too. This will massively help with dealing with the imminent wave of elite zombies.

  5. Start positioning the lanterns around the map into the correct place. They take a bit of time to move so sorting them as soon as you can (once the Dark Aether is opened) will be beneficial. As per where the lanterns need to be, read on to Step 2.

Note: You can use GobbleGums to help you along the way here, but if you don't have any applicable options, fear not, the Easter egg is still very possible, it will just require some additional elbow grease and hard work.

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Step 2: Building the Ice Staff

The reason why we recommend you do all of the things above is because you can't really make any headway with the Easter egg until Round 8 when the first Electric Mimic elite zombie spawns. When it does, defeat it and it will drop a Monocle that will help you find the two parts of the Ice Staff.

The head can be found to the right of the spawn in the tunnels area. With the purple lantern over the workbench part of this area, you will see a bunch of symbols glowing on the wall, symbols that you can shoot and need to do so in a specific order. While it might look like jumbled nonsense, these are effectively Roman numerals, and the idea is to shoot them in numerical order.

You can basically see how the symbols need to be arranged below:



  1. ∿∿ (these will be arranged vertically in-game)

  2. ∿∿∿ (same applies as above)

  3. \V

  4. V

  5. V/

  6. V//

  7. V///

  8. \X

  9. X

Once the order is set, they will connect into a constellation and you will find yourself trapped in this tunnels area and tasked with holding off hordes of zombies, including several elites too. After several waves, there will be a bright flash and beneath the constellation will be a Max Ammo and the head of the Ice Staff.

Note: If you get the constellation puzzle wrong, do not fret, it will need a few seconds to cool down and then you can continue from your last correct input.

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As per the actual main body of the Ice Staff, this will be on the opposite side of the map, in the area to the left of the spawn. The same applies as per the previous point, except now you need to move the lantern in front of the bull mural on the wall, and then arrange the same numbered constellation pattern using the same solution as earlier. Once that's done, you will again need to fight for your life for a few waves, until the bright light flashes and once again a Max Ammo and the rest of the Ice Staff are available to claim.

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Now you need to head into the Dark Aether to the very centre near to the Pack-a-Punch machine. Here, you will find a strange rock formation that you can interact with and place the two parts of the Ice Staff into, in order to repair the Wonder Weapon. The catch is that this is one of the most demanding parts of the Easter egg altogether so prepare well, as you'll need to defend the Staff from zombies attempting to break it while staying alive yourself at the same time. To help with this, one of the best items you can use are the LT53 Kazimir grenades as they will suck all zombies up away from you and the Staff, and you may be able to get one of these early on if you find a shovel and use them to uproot dig sites around the map. Otherwise, Mutant Injections are helpful, Frenzied Guard is handy for drawing the attention of the zombies, and having the gear/perks I mentioned above are almost vital.

After a short while, the bright light will flash, the zombies will be eliminated, and the Ice Staff will be ready to be picked up to replace one of your two weapons.

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Step 3: Upgrading the Ice Staff

The Ice Staff is a Wonder Weapon that deserves its namesake but it can be better... much, much better. To upgrade this tool, first you need to head back to the main map and rearrange some of the purple lanterns in such a way that you can quickly move between three of them. We would suggest the positions below.

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Once they are set, you need to shoot those three lanterns as quickly as possible with the Ice Staff and you'll only know if it worked if a voice line begins to play indicating the next step is ready to tackle. If you don't get that, worry not, simply shoot the lanterns with your gun and wait until you have them repositioned in the right place to go again.

Once that's ticked off, head into the Dark Aether again and look into the sky. If you look in the areas we show below, you will notice three rocks that have markers glowing on them. Shoot those markers with the Ice Staff and you'll see the rocks descend to the ground so you can more easily see their symbols. Remember these three symbols.

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Next, you'll notice one of the four Dark Aether portals has now been closed off. You'll need to exit the Dark Aether via another portal and head to the closed door to find it blocked with eight strange symbols. Using your Ice Staff, hit the three symbols from the floating rocks to open the portal and find yourself on a floating rock with a strange purple orb. This is where the fun begins again.

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If you have an Insta-Kill GobbleGum, save it for this part of the Easter egg, and also make sure you are well enough equipped to face a massive slate of zombies while also devoting your attention elsewhere.

Essentially, the idea once you interact with the purple orb is that you need to follow it around the Dark Aether area while also fuelling it with zombie kills. You need to stay close to this orb and you need to frequently kill zombies around it, so you will feel the heat and pressure during this stage. We would recommend using the Ice Staff to control the zombies and notch up these kills, all while slowing and avoiding the elite zombies that are lurking around. Your number one priority is the orb so remember that. Once it completes its cycle and ends up in the rock formation where you repaired the Ice Staff, your work is done and you can interact with the orb to get Ull's Arrow.

If you do fail this, fret not, you can go again from inputting the symbols on the blocked portal, except you will need to wait for the next round.

Step 4: The Four Trials

You could argue that these are four stages in themselves, but frankly compared to what you did previously, these are a breeze and a walk in the park, so we're merging them into one step.

The idea is that you need to use Ull's Arrow's alternative fire (which can also revive downed allies) to interact with the four statues around the centre of the Dark Aether. When you do, you will be able to grab essence that can be taken to the respective statue in the main level to begin a challenge that after you complete you then need to bring back to the statue you originally removed it from without taking too many hits.

The first is the Vermin statue, and you need to take this to the spawn by venturing through the blue portal to find it in the main excavation pit. Once you do, you'll be trapped in the pit while tons and tons of Vermin run at you. Our advice, just use Ull's Arrow's charged attack here, as this ability will basically make it impossible for anything to get near to you while also costing such little ammo that you won't nearly run out of charges. The aim here is to defeat enough Vermin in the time period, but this charged attack will take care of all of that. Once that's done, pick up the energy and take it back to the Vermin statue, but beware, the blue portal is now closed, meaning you'll need to use a different door.

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Note: The portal closest to the trial will be closed each time, so be prepared to head to a more distant portal each time during your return endeavour, and again, you must get the essence back without taking too many hits, else you'll need to start all over.

The second is the Parasite statue, and this one will require heading through the yellow portal to the area where you can find Stamin-Up. Once you activate the trial, the idea is to survive but to also defeat Parasites and to then collect the purple energy they drop and manually carry it back to the statue to charge it. You will need quite a bit of this, so focus on the Parasites and you will be done in ample time. Once it's completed, take the essence back to the Parasite statue, again remembering the yellow portal is now temporarily closed.

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The third is the Doppelghast statue, and this is the easiest and least mechanically demanding of the bunch. The respective statue you will need to visit in the main level is through the green portal, the area right next to Speed Cola, and once you put the essence into the statue, you will just need to kill a bunch of zombies and Doppelghasts that spawn. Again, Ull's Arrow's charged attack will make short work of whatever the game throws at you here. Once completed, grab the essence and take it back to the Dark Aether Doppelghast statue, once again being aware the green portal is now shut off.

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Lastly is the Amalgam statue. This one isn't hard per se, but it can be a pain in the neck. Once you've got the energy, take it to the Amalgam statue next to Quick Revive by travelling through the red portal. Once you activate this trial, a super elite Amalgam will spawn and it's your job to take it down. The main catch is that every now and then an impenetrable shield will surround the Amalgam and to dispel it, you will need to defeat the Heavy Zombies that it is connected to. Once the Amalgam drops, gather the essence and take it back to the Amalgam statue in the Dark Aether, noting that the red portal is now closed.

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This is actually all there is when it comes to unlocking the boss fight, as once the last essence is inserted, you'll notice that a light beam connects to an arch near Juggernog, and that a table has popped up here too. Interacting with this table will open a bridge that after crossing you will find the Sentinel Artifact and the boss fight activation input.

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Step 5: The Sentinel Artifact boss fight

This is a hard and complex boss fight, so prepare for it as best as you possibly can. At the very minimum, we would suggest each player (assuming one player still has Ull's Arrow) has the following:


  • A Tier 3 armour vest.

  • As many perks as possible, but at the very least, these three: Juggernog, Speed Cola, and Stamin-Up.

  • At least one triple Pack-a-Punched weapon, and ideally at least a double Pack-a-Punched secondary weapon if you do not have Ull's Arrow in your loadout.

  • At least one weapon that doesn't use energy ammo or explosive rounds - i.e. you are only carrying at most one of these: Ray Gun, Mustang and Sally (Pack-a-Punched akimbo GS45), or a Rad Lamblaster (Pack-a-Punched LR 7.62). This is due to explosive and energy rounds struggling to affect and help during boss DPS phases.

Anyway, with this in mind, the idea here is to destroy the Sentinel Artifact, but unlike other bosses, this isn't quite a bullet sponge without extra quirks. No, instead the big gimmick is that when the Sentinel Artifact glows orange and kicks out laser beams (that are incredibly dangerous so avoid these at all costs), it cannot be damaged, but when it stops and returns to its usual colour, it can be damaged. During that period, you must destroy one of the Sentinel Artifacts by hurling lots of damage at it in a very small period of time, and that's just so one phase of many will be ticked off.

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The boss fight begins with one Sentinel Artifact to destroy, and then it duplicates to two, and then three, and then four, and then the last major gimmick comes into the equation. During the duplication phases, the main mechanic remains the same: survive and avoid the lasers and then smash a single Sentinel Artifact during each damage phase.

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When you've surpassed the four Sentinel Artifacts, you are onto the last phase, and you will know this because this is when the fight becomes hard. Very hard. From now, elite and super elite zombies will begin spawning, starting with a Heavy Zombie, and then upgrading to a mega Doppelghast variant, then a super Electric Mimic variant, and then finally a frightening super Amalgam variant. During each of these phases, you need to do everything you previously did, i.e. smashing the Sentinel Artifact before the end of the damage phase, but the catch is that the Sentinel Artifact is now embedded in these super elite zombies. So, you need to defeat the Heavy Zombie and then smash its Sentinel Artifact quickly, then the same with the super Doppelghast, Electric Mimic, and Amalgam too. Once that's done, you're almost there, you just have one last hurdle that includes a wipe mechanic to overcome.

Note: The elite zombies with the Sentinel Artifact embedded in them and highly dangerous and hit as hard as the laser beams themselves, meaning you need to keep these as far away from you as humanly possible, as otherwise they will instantly knock you down.

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Lastly, you'll be taken away from fighting for your life in the centre of this area and instead have your attention diverted to a door with the Sentinel Artifact wedged in it. You now need to hurl as much DPS as you can muster downrange at the Sentinel Artifact and to chew through the rest of its health bar and ultimately smash it, all before the DPS phase runs out. If you succeed, you'll get the Easter egg end cutscene and you can celebrate your success. If you fail, you and your team will be wiped out and you'll have to start from scratch in a new game...

And that's all there is to it. While The Tomb has quite a straightforward Easter egg, it is without a doubt the hardest when compared to Liberty Falls, Terminus, and Citadelle des Morts.

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