Maps

Six Zombies maps carry Black Ops 2, and for all the distance between a Cold War bus route and a French dig site in 1914, every one of them asks you to do the same five things. Turn the power on. Collect parts and take them to a workbench. Open Pack-a-Punch. Find the weapon the map is built around. Then run the quest. What actually separates the maps is how much work each job takes, and that is the comparison nobody makes.

So this guide walks the five jobs in the order you meet them and puts all six maps side by side inside each one, with a full cost list and an index of our per-map guides at the end. If you would rather start from a map than from a task, jump to the index at the foot of the page.

What each map asks of you

Read this table as a workload chart rather than a checklist. The blanks are honest: they mark the jobs our own map guides do not currently cover, and a blank is itself a useful signal, because the maps with the fewest entries are the ones that ask least of a new player.

Job one: turning the power on

Three of the six maps make you earn your electricity, and they do it in wildly different amounts of time. Start with the worst of them.

TranZit takes five stages

Nothing on Green Run happens until you have a turbine, so build one first from the mannequin out on the central map, the wing of the toy plane by the payphones and the fan sitting behind the workbench. That turbine opens the bus station doors and everything else with a lock on it. Ride the bus to the third stop and look for the small shed with the AK-74u on its wall; the secret door beside it costs 750 and drops you into the lab below.

Three components are waiting inside the power station and they shuffle position between games, so sweep the floors, ledges and paths you have already walked. The severed zombie arm sits near the stairs, either in front of them or by the railing on the left. The circuit board is in the room at the top of those stairs, on the right of the door, in the same room as the workbench. The switch is over by the computer screens, or sometimes near that room's entrance. Assemble the power switch at the bench and throw it.

The payoff is working vending machines, doors that were shut all game and a map you can finally see across. The cost is whatever has been sealed inside that glass tank at the centre of the room, because it breaks out the moment the lights come on. The Avogadro roams from then on, it can stop the bus outright, and the electricity itself will hurt you. Our TranZit power guide has the full route.

Buried takes about a minute

The Western town under the quarry is the other extreme. Walk the catwalk from the starting area and drop into the hole in the ground. Quick Revive is on your left at the bottom and there is a second hole directly in front of it, so fall again. Turn back the way you came, take the right and follow the path, killing the two zombies that push up out of the dirt. The barn with the purple crystal inside is straight ahead; the building on its left has a front door, a staircase and the switch. That is the whole job, and our Buried power guide maps it in three pictures.

Origins has no switch at all

Excavation Site 64 replaces one switch with six generators, and each of them is a small siege. Hit the panel by the primal structure and a meter starts filling while zombies pour in specifically to shut it off again, so stay close and kill them before they reach the panel. Generator 1 is in the spawn room. Generator 2 is through the exit door from it. Generator 3 is through the left door from the same spot, on the left. Generators 4 and 5 are both out of the workshop into No Man's Land, one on your left and one on your right. Generator 6 is up in the church at the far back of the top floor. Bring guns worth firing and try to take all six in a single round; our Origins generators guide covers the defence.

Job two: the workbench run

Buildables are where the maps diverge most sharply. TranZit hides two parts across a bus route; Buried politely stacks four of them in one shop. This is the table to skim before a run, because knowing a part count in advance tells you whether the job is a detour or a project.

One warning belongs under that table rather than inside it. Two of the Guillotine's four parts are also Gallows parts, so the moment you spend them you have chosen Richtofen and locked yourself out of the Maxis path for that game. Decide before you pick anything up. The Die Rise builds carry their own rewards instead: fling ten zombies with the Trample Steam for Vertigoner, and the Sliquifier is required for Slippery When Undead, both listed on our Die Rise buildables guide.

Job three: opening Pack-a-Punch

On TranZit the machine is a construction project. Gather the turbine parts at the bus station, pay the 750 at the power station door and get the lights on, then run for the bank. The vault will not open on its own, so buy a Semtex and stick it to the door. The board, the slot and the battery are scattered inside; carry them to the workbench behind the vault and build. Our TranZit Pack-a-Punch guide walks it step by step.

On Buried it is an escort mission with a maze on the end. Free Leroy and feed him booze or candy so he smashes the mansion gates, keep 1,250 points for the front door, and bring a ray weapon, because the ghost lady dives at you from the left stairs and every time she touches you it costs 2,000 points. Shoot her off enough times and you are handed a perk. Then take the room off the left stairs, let the bookshelf swing open, follow the narrow passage out to the gardens and work the hedge maze: first left before the fountain, far corner right, then left twice to a locked door that confirms you are right, back and left, then left again to come out by the green door with the exit on the right. Activating the machine sets off Hell on Earth, so do not expect to walk away from it. The turns are drawn out on our Buried Pack-a-Punch guide.

On Origins there is no third job. The six generators you already fought for are the gate, and switching the last one on hands you Pack-a-Punch access and an achievement at the same time.

Job four: the weapon that carries the map

Every map has one thing you build a run around. On Origins it is four of them.

Each staff wants the same four things: its coloured disc, three elemental components and a crystal, and the crystal only comes out of a hidden teleporter that a gramophone opens. Our Origins elemental staffs guide has the part hunt for all four. After that comes the longer half of the job, because turning a staff into an ultimate staff means eight challenges, one per staff in the Crazy Place and one per staff out on the map, from the cauldrons and the piano triangles to the seven church torches numbered 11, 5, 9, 7, 6, 3 and 4. Those are all in our ultimate staffs guide.

Mob of the Dead makes you feed a wall instead. Three dog head markings sit on the second floor of Broadway, at the docks and in the infirmary, and each one wants six zombies killed in front of it before it goes quiet. Do all three, walk through the showers into the Citadel Tunnels, and the tomahawk is hanging in a beam of red light in the breach. Upgrading it to Hell's Redeemer means thirty kills with it on the Golden Gate Bridge without firing a single bullet from anything else, throwing it into the Lava Pit where you fed the first dog, then coming back through Afterlife mode to collect it from the blue light. The full sequence is on our Hell's Retriever guide.

TranZit sells its answer over the counter. The Galvaknuckles cost 6,000 on the diner roof, which is why the roof hatch matters. They one hit kill until round 14 and drop to two hits after that, pay 130 points a punch and sometimes 140, flatten the denizens in the fog and take two swings to kill the electric boss. The Bowie knife is half the price at 3,000 but stops one shotting at round 10, which is four rounds of difference for 3,000 points. Buried's cheap answer is the LSAT wall buy at 2,000, reachable on round two if you leave through the door hanging off its hinges, hug the left, and jump the gap in the broken staircase.

What everything costs

Points are the real difficulty setting in Zombies, so here is every price our map guides quote, in one place.

Job five: running the quest

TranZit asks you to obey the voices. Build turbines at the depot, take an EMP grenade out of the mystery box while you are there, and get the power on at the third stop. Maxis will ask you to turn it off again so he can talk, so wait him out. The green lights that switch on with the power are teleport points. The pylon is out in the cornfields in the smoke between the farm and the power station and you have to walk, not ride. Set two turbines under it, and when the voice calls for the electric zombie, kill the Avogadro with the EMP or a lot of knife work rather than gunfire. Our Tower of Babble guide assigns the four jobs at the end.

Die Rise turns its quest into a puzzle with a random seed. Eight mahjong tiles are scattered across eleven possible spots, so some of your search will come up empty. They pair by colour, two red, two green, two blue and two black, and the pair tells you the order to strike the four corners of the radio antenna with the Galvaknuckles. A blue East Wind beside a blue One Bamboo means the eastern corner goes first; a green Four Bamboo with a South Wind means south goes fourth. The tile on the railing by the antenna's north corner is always there, which makes it the compass for the other three. All eleven spots are listed on our Die Rise mahjong tiles guide.

Buried runs the longest quest in the game and splits it in two before you start. Mined Games is the third round of the Maxis and Richtofen argument, and building the Gallows or the Guillotine picks your side. Both paths then run the same beats in their own way: four glass orbs on pedestals by the church, the haunted house, the candy store and the tunnels, dealt with by the Subsurface Resonator on Maxis and the Paralyzer on Richtofen; a floating purple lantern knocked down with a cooked grenade; charging that lantern with Leroy on one path and the ghost on the other; and a pigpen cipher on the gunsmith roof that reshuffles every game and points at five tunnel signs. From there the paths separate properly, into bells and light panels for Maxis, and Round Infinity and the coloured maze switches for Richtofen. Both finish at the fountain, where Leroy takes a drink and you make a wish. Our Mined Games guide is the longest page we have on this game and runs both sides plus the Grand Finale.

Origins closes the set with Little Lost Girl, which is really the staff work plus a delivery run. Once all four staffs are upgraded they go on the heads of the Thor, Odin and Freya robots, with the fire staff's pedestal at the excavation site appearing only after the other three are placed. Then comes the G-Strike Beacon built from Thunder Fists and purified stone slabs, the Maxis Drone, the Zombie Blood you need to see an invisible zombie, and finally the blue circle where enough souls set Samantha free. Our Little Lost Girl guide has all seven steps.

Songs, bears and bottles

Three maps hide a music track behind three collectibles, and they are the friendliest side quests in the game because none of them needs a build, a partner or a specific round.

There are no screen prompts on any of them. Aim at the bear or the bottle and press the action button, listen for the sound that confirms it, and the track starts once the third one is done.

Perks, and why Nuketown is the odd one out

Nuketown Zombies does not hand you a perk machine, it drops one on you. Four Perk-A-Colas crash land at random spots and they arrive in sequence once you have killed enough zombies, with 99 as the number our guide gives, so a fast opening is worth more here than a careful one. Quick Revive lands first near spawn at 1,500 and halves the time it takes to pick a teammate up. Jugger-Nog is 2,500 every time you buy it and raises how much damage you can absorb before going down. Speed Cola is 3,000 and reloads in half the time, though it does nothing for barrier rebuilding the way it did in the first Black Ops. Double Tap Root Beer adds 33 percent to your rate of fire, adds recoil with it, and doubles your bullets in a way that only shows up in damage. Our Nuketown perks guide covers all four.

Getting around

TranZit is the only map with a vehicle, and the bus takes three parts that spawn across four possible sheds. The Plow goes on the front and kills anything it touches, which also stops zombies bunching up and climbing through the windows. The Roof Hatch goes in the middle and gets you onto the roof from inside, though zombies can use it too, and it is what puts you on the diner roof for the Galvaknuckles. The Ladder goes on the outside left, which is exactly where you want it at the Power Plant when the right side doors are unusable. Fit all three for the Undead Man's Party Bus achievement, and check the bus upgrades guide for the shed by the bank vault, which is the one people miss.

Buried has no bus but it does have the Trample Steam, which is a traversal tool as much as a trap. Set it at a rooftop edge and ride across to the next building, or point it at a doorway and let it fling whatever comes through. Used as a trap it comes back off cooldown faster than it does when you launch yourself with it.

The one multiplayer map here: Turbine

One page in this bucket has nothing to do with Zombies. Turbine sets a match on a Yemeni wind farm and is one of the largest maps in the game, built around a toppled turbine lying across the middle of the valley that you can climb at the cost of being visible from every direction. Rocks break the long west to east run into narrow, linear stretches, which is why long range weapons and close quarters fighting both work here. Three hotspots carry the traffic, in the south, the centre and a tighter northern pocket, and the guide walks the vantage points, the flag routes and separate notes for Demolition, Domination and Search and Destroy.

Every Black Ops 2 Zombies guide, by map

This is the map first view of the same 25 guides, if that is how you prefer to navigate.

Black Ops 2 Zombies map questions

Which map asks the most of you?

Judged by the five jobs, Origins. Six defended generators stand in for a single switch, four separate wonder weapons each want a disc, three parts and a crystal, and then eight more challenges sit between those staffs and their upgraded versions before the quest proper begins.

Which one is quickest to get going on?

Buried. The power switch is a short drop and a right turn from spawn, the LSAT is a 2,000 point wall buy you can reach on round two, and four parts each for two different buildables sit inside one shop.

Can I change my mind about Maxis or Richtofen on Buried?

Not once you have started building. The Gallows and the Guillotine share two of their four parts, so spending those parts on one locks the other out for the rest of that game.

Do I need three friends?

For the quests, mostly yes. Tower of Babble ends with four people holding four positions, the bells and lights step on Buried splits the team three ways with a fourth on the panel, and the Richtofen ball of light on Buried moves too fast to chase alone. The songs, the buildables and the wonder weapons are all fine solo.