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Treyarch recently released the first new zombies map for Black Ops 6 since the game’s launch, Citadelle Des Morts. With it naturally comes a new full Easter Egg quest and I have put together a full guide below.
First Things First
The first step as usual is to unlock the Pack-a-Punch machine. There will be on screen prompts for this but briefly you need to make your way to the castle. Blast open the front gate using the cannon on the battlements.
Head to the basement, the oubliette room specifically, shoot the three locks on the shipping container there and kill the Doppelghast that comes out. It will drop a red crystal that you can pick up. Interact with the portal in the now empty container to spawn in the Pack-a-Punch machine.
Egg Start
With the basics out of the way now it’s time to work on the less obvious steps. With PaP spawned in you will now be able to interact with Gabriel Krafft.
He’s locked away in the dungeon fittingly enough. Locate the wooden door in the little room behind Quick Revive and interact with the window to open it.
You’ll get some dialogue and Krafft will invoke an incantation that will allow you to move on with the Easter Egg. From there head up to the sitting room area on the first floor to gather four pages with red symbols on them as shown here.
They move around each game but will generally be spaced out in the four corner areas all in the sitting room. These will be used for a later step.
Swords!
Now it’s time to start working on the swords. There are four new wonder weapons in Citadelle Des Morts, the four elemental swords. Similar to the elemental bows from Der Eisendrache in Black Ops 3. Fire (Dragon), Lightning (Stag), Shadow (Raven) and Light (Lion).
Starting on Round 10 iron helmeted zombies will start spawning that drop key items called stamps. Picking up a stamp will allow you to obtain one of the swords from four the statues in the dining hall. This is the only way to get a sword so don’t waste your money or gobblegums on the mystery box.
The four statues will have emblems indicating which sword they hold. Dragon for fire, Stag for Lightning, lion for Light, and a raven for Shadow. This all seems heavily inspired by Game of Thrones. You will need to upgrade each of the swords to move forward with the Easter Egg.
The order you do them in doesn’t matter but some swords are easier than others so I recommend doing those later all else being equal. Once you pick up a sword you can interact with the statue again to return it and pick a different one though note that you will need another stamp to unlock each new one.
Durendal Stag of the Storms
I’ve generally found this sword trial the trickiest so we’ll start here on as early a round as possible. Once you have the lightning sword from the stag statue you need to gather three lightning rods from around the map.
Two can be obtained at any time, the third won’t spawn until you have the sword in hand. The first is located right next to the Deadshot Daiquiri machine as seen here.
While you’re there you may as well collect the horseshoe as well from just inside the barn there, you’ll need it later. It’s located above the doorway seen here, just shoot it a few times to dislodge it and then pick it up.
For the next lightning rod you’ll need either the Deadwire ammo mod or a shock charge. Once you have one of those, head over to Speed Cola. There is a fuse box located here, right near Speed Cola which you need to electrify after which a lightning rod will fall to earth.
The third and final rod will spawn on a zombie in the dungeon only after you have unlocked the lightning sword. Head down there and look for an Armored Zombie with a rod lodged in its chest.
It may have spawned already if a player was hanging out down there so look around the basement area for a yellow key item if it’s taking a while.
With all three rods in hand you need to head for the battlements and interact with this urn thing here near Elemental Pop.
This is where it gets sticky. It will spawn a mini storm that you need to stay inside and kill zombies with the lightning sword. While doing so you will periodically be struck with lightning and your sword will glow blue. When that happens, hit the urn with the glowing sword. It should transfer that glow to the urn.
You’ll need to do it a few times and the amount seems variable. Its pretty tight quarters up there and there is a timer on this trial. If you take too long or leave the area the storm will end and spit out the rods. You’ll have to pick them up and start over. Eventually though after enough hits the storm will stop and you’ll be able to interact with the urn again to insert the sword and upgrade it to Durendal.
Solais Lion of Light
When you pick up the light sword you’ll notice four glowing parasites (flying bugs) will spawn in. These have a brighter yellow glow than normal parasites and would be pretty distinguishable. Do not kill them yet.
You need to lead them over to the door with a lion knocker near Speed Cola, right by the fuse box from the previous step. Once there, melee kill one of glowing bugs and your sword should start glowing yellow.
Hit the door with the glowing sword and a rune should light up. Repeat with the remaining three parasites. If you don’t have enough just end the round and more will spawn in.
Once all four runes are lit up on the door interact with it to enter a new chamber. Inside you’ll see a pedestal with a handy sword slot. Interact with it to slide the sword home.
When you do those same runes from the door will shoot out of the pedestal and onto the walls. You need to shoot them in the order they appear on the pedestal. That will circle with a dot, snowflake, triangle, other circle.
They’ll move around periodically and a couple zombies will spawn in there to complicate this step. Once you hit them correctly the sword will upgrade to Solais, pick it up to exit.
Balmung Raven of Shadows
To upgrade this sword you’ll first need to grab an item from the alchemists lab. The specific changes each game but it will be either a scorpion fossil, a fish fossil, a jaw bone, a horn, or a bird skull.
They will all be on various shelves in the alchemist’s lab and are not hard to find. Take that item and the raven sword over to the tavern cellar at spawn and interact with the bronze circle across from the portal there.
You’ll need to enter a combination using the rings on the device. That combination depends on which item spawned in your game. All the possible combinations are shown in the below image.
Once entered correctly a music cue will sound a shadow portal will open up right in front of the circle. The circle will start spitting out purple balls that will follow you slowly. If they hit you they do damage so beware.
You need to guide the balls into the shadow portal by putting the portal between you and the nearest ball. After a few have entered the portal a new one will spawn one floor up, and another after that one. Once you’ve filled the third one last purple ball will return to the bronze circle and Balmung will be yours for the taking.
Caliburn Dragon’s Fire
By far the easiest sword to upgrade is Caliburn. Take the plain fire sword to the Dragon statue in the entrance hall of the castle and insert it there.
Three braziers will now be lit around the map. You need to interact with each one in turn and carry the fire aura it spreads to you back to the dragon statue. It will continually damage you as you go so Juggernog is extremely helpful for this.
Event zombies will spawn in along your path back to the statue which is a good thing because meleeing them will instakill them and heal you back to full while you have this fire aura.
The three braziers are located as follows (they’ll be lit at this point). One in the spawn courtyard near the rampage inducer.
One just past the entrance to the nature path with Deadshot Daquiri.
And one on the ramparts near one of the oil traps.
Once you’ve carried all three fires back to the statue it will breathe fire on the sword and Caliburn will be available. Now on to the incantations.
Incantations
Each elemental sword corresponds with a powerful piece of incantation equipment. To unlock each of these you’ll first need the upgraded version of the corresponding sword.
Again I’ll give these in the order I think best but you can do them in whatever order you prefer. Essentially for each incantation you need to find an artifact, insert said artifact into a circle of power and then feed it zombie souls by killing them nearby a la soul boxes.
Fire Incantation
The hardest one to unlock is definitely Caliburn’s so I recommend starting there. There are three bonfires up high that need to be lit. One is above the room with Elemental Pop.
One is on a cliff directly above Speed Cola.
And lastly one is above the doorway to the entrance hall that you blew open with the cannon.
You need to hit these with fire. The easiest way is to shoot Caliburns fireball ability at them though note that it will need to be charged after each use by sword killing several zombies. Molotovs and thermo grenades also work but can be hard to aim at these distances. Napalm burst might work but is sporadic.
Lighting a bonfire will spawn a handful of zombies and on the third one a Doppelghast will spawn. Kill that Doppleghast to get the fire artifact, the ankh. Take the ankh to the courtyard of the castle just in front of the gateway to Speed Cola and interact with the glowing yellow circle that will appear there.
Now it’s soul box time. Kill a bunch if zombies near the artifact to charge it up. Eventually a small chest will appear in its place. Hit the chest with Caliburn to get the fire incantation equipment. (Below is the Solais one but they all look like this.)
When you unlock an incantation the incantation will be available for the rest of the game at the location where you spawned it as well as a few others scattered across the map and will respawn a few minutes after being picked up.
Lightning Incantation
The artifact for the lightning incantation is the horse shoe I mentioned earlier. If you didn’t get it then grab it now. It’s located in the barn on the inside of one of the door frames and can be shot down.
Once you have it head back to the cannon on the battlements and activate the fast travel to shoot yourself back to spawn. You’ll notice a blue flash mid flight.
The horseshoe will now be on the ground either to the right or left of spawn and will have lightning striking around it.
Go pick it up noting that a bunch of zombies will spawn when you get near it. Take it into the spawn courtyard and put it in the yellow circle there next to the door of the nature path. Same as before soul box it until a chest appears then hit it with Durendal to get the lightning incantation.
Light Incantation
In the dining room with all the statues you’ll notice a bunch of gem fixtures on the walls. One located right above Vulture Aid will be glowing at this point.
Shoot it and a beam of light will shoot out. Keep shooting it until that light hits another gem, then rinse and repeat on each gem in turn.
Hit registration can be tricky here so try and stand right below where the beam is pointing when you’re doing this. Eventually the light will bounce around every gem and land on a bust and an amulet will appear there.
Grab it and head back to the dining room where a yellow circle will appear, place the amulet inside, fill it with souls and smack the chest with Solais once it appears to get the Light Incantation.
Shadow Incantation
By far the easiest artifact to get is the raven’s claw. Simply use the sewer fast travel from the Pack-a-Punch room and as you near the final turn shoot the raven sitting on the corner there. It will fly out into the open and you just shoot it once more.
The claw will drop to the ground, trailed by a purple line to make it easier to spot. Grab it and head to the undercroft where you’ll find, you guessed it, a yellow circle. Fill that bad boy up and smack the eventual chest with Balmung to get the final incantation.
The Symbols Mason!
Also in the undercroft you’ll notice one square section of wall that looks breakable.
That’s because it is! Grab Melee Machiato and smack the wall there to reveal a bunch of symbols. I believe it has to be the punch specifically not a melee weapon so melee it while holding a gun.
You have to shoot six symbols in a specific order. That code will change every game so head over to the tavern to figure it out. Inside the tavern there are six identical bottles labeled 1 through 6 in Roman numerals. That’s I II III IV V VI.
Interacting with a bottle reveals a symbol and the numeral tells you the order they go in. I recommend writing these down.
Bottle 1 is located just on the corner of the bar itself. From there head towards the arsenal and Bottle 2 is located on a nearby table. Bottle 3 is in the corner of the first floor near the other end of the bar. Bottle 4 is upstairs near the dart board and pool table (shoot the pool balls for a free 100 points btw). Bottle 5 is on another table just opposite Bottle 2. Bottle 6 is on a corner table just to the left as you enter the leftmost doorway.
Once you have all six symbols and their corresponding numbers head back to the undercroft and shoot the symbols in order. Be careful because after you shoot the first one they’ll start to shift around randomly every few seconds.
Trap Souls
When the correct sequence is entered the code wall will disappear and reveal a space to place those red symbol pages from earlier. Interact to put them down and note the order they are in.
The order you’ll need is top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right. Each of the symbols corresponds to a different power circle trap location on the map. Find the corresponding traps in the order I just mentioned.
The symbols can be easy to mistake for one another so make sure you’ve found the exact matches, again jotting down some doodles would be helpful here. Traps appear on your tac map but these are also big red glowing circles so you’ll likely have spotted them already.
You’ll need to activate them one at a time and kill fifteen or so zombies inside the traps area of effect. You’ll know you’ve succeeded if the trap ends quicker than normal and you can also check the pages in the undercroft which will no longer glow red after the corresponding trap is filled.
Weapon Inspection Ritual
Once all four traps are filled in the correct order four symbols will appear on the face of this wall just past the sitting room heading towards the basement.
These will be the dragon, stag, raven and lion. Starting at the top and moving clockwise, jot down the order the symbols appear in (which changes each game).
Head back to the dining hall and grab both the sword and incantation for the first symbol in your order, whichever one was on top. Use the incantation on the appropriate statue then weapon inspect the corresponding sword right in front of the glowing statue.
If done correctly the statue will glow golden and you can move on to the next one. With all four statues lit they’ll each shoot a beam of light into the sky and a mystical orb will descend which you can then grab.
Ponder the Orb, Fill the Orb
Next is the final and hardest step of the Easter Egg before the boss fight. You need to take the mystical orb to four spots around the map and fill it up at each spot by getting specific elemental kills.
The closest and easiest one is the light one and its just in that same room with the statues, located directly across from Vulture Aid. Interact with the holder on the wall to place the orb and green balls will spawn around the room.
Standing in them will charge the orb as will kills with the light incantation and charged light sword attack. This is the only one that comes with an aid for some reason maybe because the light element is a new addition.
You need to get a bunch of light balls into the orb here and each of these trials are timed so you may have to do this over multiple rounds. Only kills from the required elemental attack will count. Once you have enough you’ll be able to pick the orb up again and head to the next location.
These will all be near where you filled the artifact for each incantation. The fire one is located in the middle of the castle courtyard and needs fire kills (molotov, thermo grenade, napalm burst, Caliburn fire ball attack)
The dark one is in the undercroft and needs shadow kills (shadow rift ammo mod, shadow Incantation and shadow sword ability).
The electric one is located in spawn right next to where you filled the horseshoe and needs electric kills. This is the hardest one. Make sure that electric damage is landing the killing blows here not just stunning them and then killing them with bullets.
When you’ve successfully completed all elemental trials and filled the Orb head back to the wall with the four symbols on it and place the Orb in its center. It will open up to reveal a hidden room.
Head inside and grab the guardian key on the table there and listen to the dialogue. Next up its boss fight time so prepare.
Boss Prep
Tier 3 Pack-a-Punched guns and mutant injections are by far the best things you can take into this fight. Max out armor as well and grab essential perks (Jug, Quick Revive and Speed Cola are essential in my opinion).
Bare minimum you’re going to want at least one tier 3 packed gun per player or it will at best be a slog and at worst a nightmare.
There will be incantations available so equipment isn’t all that important to take with you but I do recommend combat axes for clearing out hordes quickly. Beyond that it’s really just whatever you’re most comfortable with as far as which sword, field upgrade and gobblegums you equip. This is a pretty straightforward boss fight if not a particularly easy one.
Boss Fight
When you’re ready head back to spawn and interact with the space just in front of the huge statue inside the fountain. A vote will initiate to start the boss fight.
When you accept the statue will come to life and teleport you to the boss arena. It’s just a large circular area surrounded by lava with one of each incantation available at the cardinal points.
Obviously the best play here is to run around the edges shooting the boss’s weak points when you have a chance (they’ll be glowing) and avoiding his huge attacks. Don’t cluster too much the area of effect attacks can be devastating. He will also occasionally spawn in extra lava so just be aware of that and try and avoid it because it does a ton of damage on contact.
This fight is broken up into three stages in between which the statue goes immobile and spawns a bunch of zombies to fight. When it is active aim for the glowing patches and try to break his armor. When you do he’ll take massive damage in those areas. If you go down try and crawl to an open patch of ground outside of the lava to allow your team to get to you.
At the moment this is one of the easier boss fights in CoD Zombies. It shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge provided you’re properly prepared but don’t underestimate it and go in half cocked.
As with the previous boss I highly recommend grinding to as high a round as you need to make sure you’re fully kitted out. High round zombies are nothing compared to being fully equipped. When you’ve successfully snuffed out the golem he will drop the amulet Krafft mentioned and the ending cutscene will play.
You can choose to end the game there or continue playing for high rounds. If you continue you will be awarded tons of points, orange tier guns, aether tools, a ray gun and free pack-a-punch crystals. Congrats!
