Black Ops 7 Zombies: Ashes of the Damned — full main quest Easter egg walkthrough

Ashes of the Damned is the largest round-based map Treyarch has built, and its main quest is long even by Zombies standards. This walkthrough breaks it into five phases, in the order most players find easiest — a few steps can technically be done out of sequence, but this route avoids backtracking.

Phase 1: Power and Pack-a-Punch

1. Follow the game's own objective markers to restore power. This activates Pack-a-Punch and unlocks Ol' Tessie, the vehicle you'll use to get around the map's three points of interest for the rest of the quest.
2. Once Ol' Tessie is unlocked, install TEDD — a device that guides several later steps — into the vehicle.

Phase 2: Collecting the setup items

1. Restore power at Blackwater Lake to pick up the Jar of Spores.
2. Restore power at Ashwood, which opens the Sheriff's Office and frees Klaus from his cell — he assists with several steps later on.
3. Head to the diner near Exit 115 and clear zombies until one drops a Freezer Key. Use it to open the double freezer inside and collect the Abomination Carcass.
4. Drive Ol' Tessie along the main highways between points of interest and destroy the glowing purple spore growths blocking the road.

Phase 3: The three area set-pieces

1. At Exit 115, freeze the lightning — this wakes three specific zombies that you'll need to lure back into it a couple of rounds later.
2. At Zarya Cosmodrome, slow down the rotating arrays and launch the rocket.
3. At Vandorn Farm, track down and collect all four hidden artifacts.
4. Near Blackwater, find the film projector and shoot its four reels in the order it displays on screen.

Phase 4: Building the Necrofluid Gauntlet

This is the map's Wonder Weapon, and it's required to finish the quest — not an optional side reward.

1. Direct Klaus to help retrieve the Aether Barrel.
2. Charge the Aether Barrel three times — once each at Blackwater Lake, Ashwood, and Vandorn Farm. You get roughly 90 seconds between charges, so plan your route to all three before starting the timer.
3. Direct Klaus again to retrieve a feather elsewhere on the map.
4. Keep clearing zombies until a Whisp enemy spawns, then let it smash the specific mirror tied to this step.
5. Return to Ashwood and repeat the clock-based steps to infuse the finished Gauntlet with temporal energy.

Phase 5: The final fight

1. With every earlier phase complete, head to the lake to trigger the quest's final stage.
2. Defeat Veytharion, the map's boss, to complete the Easter egg — finishing it unlocks an ending cutscene along with the quest's permanent rewards.

Why it's worth doing

Beyond the ending itself, this main quest is also the first step toward Black Ops 7's Super Easter Egg, which only unlocks once every map's main quest — including this one — has been completed.