Meet Ol Tessie and unlock Pack a Punch
Ashes of the Damned is the first Zombies map in Call of Duty Black Ops 7 and it is huge. Instead of one tight arena you are driving across a full open region using a beat up pickup truck called Ol Tessie. She is basically your party member, your fast travel and your Pack a Punch platform in one.
Your first objective is to bring Ol Tessie to life. Head to Janus Towers Plaza, go into the Server Room and melee the round floor grate to grab TEDD's Head. Slot that onto the truck outside and you are officially on the road.
The twist is that every road between locations is dangerous. Special zombies cling to the truck and the roadside is littered with explosive red pods that shred Tessie’s health. You can repair damage by driving over green pods and you can lean out to clear zombies off the truck, but if Tessie blows up you are basically stranded.
From Janus Towers your route goes through the big early objectives:
- Blackwater Lake Shoot the orange pods off the Power Pump outside the cabin before they regrow, then flip the power switch upstairs to open the next road.
- Ashwood Take the zipline up, buy through doors, and clear a second Power Pump the same way. Flip the power switch and a garage opens. Park Ol Tessie inside, grab the Pack a Punch unit from the workbench, and mount it on the truck.
Once Pack a Punch is installed you can upgrade weapons anywhere and Ol Tessie gains a nitro boost that lets you ram through undead traffic and speed between objectives.
One more big upgrade comes from Exit 115. Fight inside Reba’s Diner until a zombie drops a Freezer Key, open the kitchen freezer, grab the Abomination Carcass and take it back to the Ashwood garage. Mount it to unlock the Abomination Beam a brutal truck mounted laser that becomes vital later for key items and the final boss.
Build the Necrofluid Gauntlet and the serum
Every good Zombies map has a Wonder Weapon. In Ashes of the Damned it is the Necrofluid Gauntlet a chunky glove that fires corrosive energy and powers several puzzles.
To earn it you first have to deal with Uber Klaus. From round 8 onward approach the shipping container at Janus Towers Plaza and the miniboss bursts out. Keep moving, aim for the purple weak spots and bring serious firepower. When he drops the Stabilizer Chip, ride to Ashwood, zip up to Market Square, reach the jail and plug the chip into the panel. Toss three Stun Grenades so Klaus actually gets hit and he will wake up as an AI ally you can command with your Tactical button.
With Klaus following, drive to Zarya Cosmodrome and lead him into the Support Systems room underground. Point him at the control panel so he powers it on, then defend the scanning device through waves until the case opens. Grab the Aether Barrel and buy the Wisp Tea perk before you leave.
The Aether Barrel has to be charged at three different Power Pumps at Blackwater Lake, Ashwood and Vandorn Farm. Insert it at each pump and defend the area long enough to fill it with energy before it decays. Save Vandorn for last and do not use Jump Pads while holding the barrel or you drop it. After the third pump head to the Vandorn Farm cellar, interact with the glowing cube and then launch on the nearby Jump Pad to see a set of red symbols on the roofs as you travel overhead. Memorize those, return to the cube, rotate the symbols in its green circles to match what you saw and you will finally earn the Necrofluid Gauntlet. A quick trial in the basement shows you how it works: pop the green orbs with the gauntlet and fight your way out.
That unlocks the real grind. The long main quest centers on brewing a special serum from six grisly ingredients:
- Powder of the Forgotten Grab Wisp Tea at Zarya, then go to the Ashwood Tailor Shop with the bloody mirror. Trigger Wisp Tea by killing zombies, let the wisp enter the mirror, then shoot the cube inside the reflection with the Gauntlet to get the powder.
- Widow's Lantern At Blackwater Lake pick up the Jar of Spores from the cabin kitchen. At Vandorn Farm use it on the horse carcass by the road, then come back three rounds later and collect the lantern.
- Human Bones Inside the Vandorn barn, look at the hanging bodies. The bloody one in the center is your target. Hit its leg with a Combat Axe and burn the dropped foot with a Molotov.
- Ravager Eyes Also at Vandorn, wait for a Ravager special to spawn then lure it into a Saw Trap. Let the trap do the kill and it leaves its eyes behind.
- Hoard Husk Chunks Drive Ol Tessie along any road and seek large purple pods. Use the Abomination Beam to blow them up and loot the chunks.
- Mysterious Limb From round 16 Zursa the massive infected bear can spawn. Kill it with the Abomination Beam as the finishing blow and it drops the limb.
When all six are collected, head to Yuri's Lab at Zarya Cosmodrome. Interact with the Powder of the Forgotten on the back table and a cipher appears on the chalkboard, telling you three specific ingredients in a coded language. Your combination is random but once you interpret the symbols you must interact with the three correct items in order. Get it right and you can add blood to the flask at a permanent health penalty of dropping to 75 maximum. Survive the mini lockdown in the lab and the serum stage is done.
Keys, puzzles and the final boss Veytharion
The serum changes the map and spawns three special keys on the roads that all unlock a box in Rabbit Alley in Ashwood. Each key glows a different color and each one debuffs you in a different way while you carry it, which forces you to rely on smart route planning and the truck.
- Terrapin Key Glowing green, found on the grounded ship between Ashwood and Vandorn. Grab it with the Gauntlet and get back to Tessie because you lose sprinting.
- Bruin Key Bright yellow, sitting along the Ashwood to Zarya road. Once you pick it up you are locked to melee weapons so you need movement and awareness instead of gunfire.
- Nightbird Key Red, on the road from Ashwood to Exit 115 near the dinosaur skull props. It disables health regeneration so you should dive straight into the truck and avoid getting chipped down.
All three keys open the Ashwood lockbox and trigger a mid game cutscene plus one more major truck upgrade the DG 2 Turret Barrel. After installing it in Ashwood, shoot the new floating clock tower above the town to infuse it with purple energy then tag any of its four clock faces with the Necrofluid Gauntlet. This supercharges your Gauntlet so you can complete four linked puzzles at Vandorn Farm, Exit 115, Zarya Cosmodrome and Blackwater Lake, each involving family relics, timed lightning zombies, a monitor cipher and a film reel hunt around the cabin.
Once those are done, Klaus moves to the dock at Blackwater Lake. Talking to him there lets you start the finale. Before the showdown you get one last hectic road trip: three glowing wisps appear on every road segment between the main locations. Race Ol Tessie through Blackwater to Janus, Janus to Vandorn, Vandorn to Ashwood and back to Blackwater scooping up all twelve wisps before the timer runs out. Grab the last one and you are teleported into the boss arena.
The final fight is against Veytharion a gigantic floating horror that bombards the arena with explosives and a lethal beam attack. You and your squad must keep Ol Tessie rolling around the ring, dodging red danger circles, repairing the truck when the boss throws it, and using Decoys or other crowd control on elite zombies like Zursa. At certain phases Veytharion is invulnerable and you must drive through energy pickups with Tessie, then boost off ramps to slam into the boss and break its shield. Those same ramming attacks are also your best burst damage throughout the encounter.
When Veytharion finally falls you have cleared the main Ashes of the Damned quest. From there the map opens up for high round runs, Cursed mode relic challenges and replaying the enormous easter egg with better routes and tighter teamwork.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/black-ops-7-zombies-easter-egg-ashes-of-the-damned/
