Call of Duty Zombieshas a rather complex timeline of events that indulges in different dimensions and universes across several games. The Aether story has seen many complex ideas and characters entwined in an epic saga.Call of Duty Zombieswill be forever memorable for not just its maps and wonder weapons, but for its characters and set crews.
Every map inCall of Duty Zombiesinvolves a set crew that has a story to tell, with individual personalities of immense importance to the overarching story. What started in Call of Duty: World at Warfinally ends inCall of Duty: Black Ops 4, and everything connects so that players can learn the fates of everyCOD Zombiescrew from start to finish.
This list will not include the Chaos crew due to its lack of importance and separation to the Aether/Dark Aether storyline of COD Zombies, and its subsequent cancellation in Black Ops 4.
7Ultimis
The Original Crew Who Blew Up The Earth Who Were Later Poisoned By Primis Nikolai
The discovery of Element 115 led to an Illuminati member and German scientist known as Edward Richtofen to join forces with Group 935 and begin his work on teleportation. Using himself as a live test subject, Richtofen would be teleported to the Moon where he came in contact with the MPD, a strange Aether Pyramid created by the Apothicons. Infected by the Dark Aether through physical contact with the MPD, Richtofen would hear twisted voices that drove him to insanity that aided his 115 experiments of three test subjects:Nikolai, Dempsey, and Takeo, all German enemies in World War 2.
Returning to the Der Riese facility, after his time at the 935 Siberian outpost, Richtofen betrays Doctor Maxis, the leader of 935, and Maxis’ daughter Samantha by locking them in a teleporter and activating it. Doing so saw Samantha land on the Moon where she became entwined with the MPD and corrupted by the Dark Aether to which she controls the undead armies. In retaliation, Richtofen awakens the test subjects and journeys with them to retrieve his diary, the Vril Device, and the Focusing Stone – the necessities to stop Samantha on the Moon.
Ultimis’ journey ends on the Moon where Richtofen’s grand scheme sees him transfer his soul with Samantha’s thanks to the Vril Device and the MPD. The survivors of Ultimis accidentally blow up the Earth and then travel back in time with Samantha in Richtofen’s body back to Groom Lake where they are held in a hangar until Maxis takes control of Agartha with the help of Victis in 2025. This sees Maxis send Samantha’s soul to the House, and a now soulless Richtofen is reunited with his own soul after a zombie possessing Richtofen’s soul from 2025 interacts with his body With Ultimis now reunited, Primis recruits them in a broken cycle to end the Great War. Yet, Primis Nikolai’s plan secretly involved killing Ultimis to allow the Dark Aether to engulf the multiverse and begin anew without them, leaving all of Ultimis dead in a universe to be forgotten.
6Primis
The Refined Crew Who Saved The Multiverse Countless Times Were All Poisoned By Primis Nikolai
Primis began their journey at a Group 935 dig site in Northern France in another dimension in 1918, where Element 115 once again created a zombie army. Dempsey, Nikolai, and Takeo are all tasked by their governments in World War 1 to retrieve the mysterious Doctor Edward Richtofen. Things go awry when zombies engulf the dig site, and the four must work together to free Samantha from Agartha and ascend to the House, where they would meet Dr. Monty who would now guide them into securing a better tomorrow, a better tomorrow that would require the Kronorium, a book that details the written and unchanging events of the future, and the Summoning Key to capture the innocent souls of Richtofen, Dempsey, Nikolai, and Takeo.
Stubborn and determined to save himself from a written fate, Richtofen joins back with the other three Primis crew members toventure through fractured timelines of Ultimis, killing each of their selves to capture their souls in the Summoning Key to help Monty create a perfect universe. After capturing all four of their souls, Primis returns to Monty and the House, but not before each claiming 2 blood vials from the Mob of the Dead crew as an insurance policy in case Dr. Monty tried to erase them from existence along with the Apothicons. Drinking the blood vials and banishing the Apothicons from the House, Monty tries to create the perfect realm but cannot erase Primis, so he sends them back to 1299 to be the heroes of the Great War, closing a time paradox.
Yet, Richtofen refuses to die here to continue a never-ending cycle, so he teleports to his Alcatraz lab into cryogenic stasis to awaken in a new broken cycle where he has Primis divulge from the path of claiming their souls. Post-Revelations Richtofen tasks pre-Gorod Krovi Nikolai with reading the Kronorium, knowing with his soul intact, he can do what Richtofen doesn’t have the strength to do. Nikolai leads Primis to recruit Ultimis, where they then locate the Elemental Shard that bound their souls, and have Victis find the Agarthan Device. Nikolai poisons Primis and Ultimis, destroys the artifacts, breaking the cycle, and allowing the Dark Aether to absolve the multiverse. Nikolai has Samantha kill him to open a new universe, where the child versions of Samantha Maxis and Eddie Richtofen are allowed a new start at life free of Apothicons and the undead as its sole survivors.
5Victis
Four Survivors That Saved Samantha Maxis That Were Abandoned After One Last Mission
When Maxis nuked the Earth from Griffin Station on the Moon, it was actually the Earth from 2025. Thus, the world would forever be changed, and undead armies were rampant on the planet with Richtofen’s command over them. Four survivors banded together, with three of them attempting to aid Maxis in overpowering Richtofen’s connection to the Aether, while one of them, Samuel Stuhlinger, attempted to aid Richtofen due to his voice being in his head for his consumption of zombie meat as part of the Flesh cult.
The Victis crew sided with Maxis, traveling the globe to activate pylons that would be used to overpower Richtofen’s connection to the Dark Aether, causing Maxis to take control of the zombie hordes. However, this was a betrayal, and Victis was left to die by Maxis who now had a zombie army under his control. Richtofen’s soul was banished to travel between zombies, and Samantha Maxis was freed and placed into the House. Yet, this wasn’t the end of Victis, as Primis Richtofen opened a portal in Buried to help Victis escape. Victis aided Primis Richtofen in retrieving a few valuables for his plan, and he tricked them into stepping into cryostasis pods in his lab at Alcatraz where they would be left in stasis until they were needed next.
Victis were later woken from their pods after the broken cycle saw Ultimis and Primis join forces for the Great War. Transported to Group 935’s Siberian outpost in Tag der Toten torebuild the Agarthan Deviceat the request of Zombie Richtofen’s guiding voice to Stuhlinger, Victis was once again used. Nikolai’s plan involves using the Agarthan Device to destroy the Summoning Key and thus every universe touched by the Apothicons, allowing the Dark Aether to swallow the multiverse to leave a new one to be born safe from madness. Unfortunately, Victis were swallowed into the Dark Aether, and their fate will forever remain unknown. Yet, with so much corruption and danger in the Dark Aether, and their entrapment to a Siberian outpost with deadly weather, it’s expected that they all died.
4Alcatraz’s Mobsters
The Mob of the Dead crew are extremely distinct for their 1920s mobster personalities. Mobsters that once ruled their city, these criminals were placed into Alcatraz and relied on Weasel’s absurd escape plans. Yet, these escape plans were creatively stupid, and the other three mobsters killed Weasel in frustration. The Warden of Alcatraz, a secret worshipper of the Shadowman, used this as an excuse to execute the remaining three, which created a pocket dimension in which Finn, Sal, Weasel, and Billy would be forced to live anddie in Alcatraz against the zombie hordeswith no knowledge of their countless times they had died before, despite the environment around them never reverting back to what it was.
This perpetuating cycle would always continue, even when the Mobsters escaped on a makeshift plane. If the Mobsters die or kill Weasel, the cycle would continue forever, and this pocket dimension that was crafted specifically to steal Primis Richtofen’s 115-infused blood would remain forever waiting for their prize. That was until Weasel fought back, and instead of being killed by the three other Mobsters, he killed them, thus breaking the cycle that had continued for an eternity.
After the cycle is broken, the four members of the Mob of the Dead crew are freed to roam Alcatraz as ghosts. Free from the Warden’s torment and not as zombie slaves, the Alcatraz mobsters roam this pocket dimension of Alcatraz until Primis arrive, where they all aid in Richtofen’s efforts to defeat the Warden, Brutus. Richtofen uses the Fire Gem from his Elemental Staff in the Great War to free the spirits of Alcatraz, thus putting the souls of Finn, Sal, Billy, and Weasel to rest.
A film crew working on George A. Romero’s newest zombie movie finds themselves thrust into a real-life hellish nightmare when their beloved director is kidnapped by a zombie and turned into one of their overlords. Those who survive, the celebrity-studded cast of Call of the Dead, must fight their way through the former crew of their movie set located in a Siberian outpost, which just so happens to be theremnants of Group 935’s researchfacility spanning a vibrant lighthouse and a shipwrecked freighter.
The Call of the Dead crew discover a locked mechanical door in the basement of the lighthouse, where a German doctor speaks to them from behind it. This is none other than the Ultimis crew, locked in Richtofen’s old Siberian outpost teleporter room. Richtofen tasks the Call of the Dead crew with recovering the Vril Device, which is part of Richtofen’s grand scheme. Once done, Ultimis leave for Shangri-La, leaving the Call of the Dead crew in the harsh cold of this Siberian outpost.
The Call of the Dead cast remains stranded on this outpost, forced to fight an undying George A. Romero and an undead army in the freezing cold. Producers, assistants, and loved ones were unable to find the cast and crew. George’s personal assistant Sally even tried to find them but wound up in Shangri-La’s time loop. Thus, it’s expected that the Call of the Dead crew were killed by the harsh weather or the zombies.
2Pentagon Crew
The Five Crew Went On With Their Normal Lives, But Fractured Timelines Present Their Deaths
At the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Robert McNamara met with Fidel Castro in the Pentagon in good faith to try and come to peace terms. However, Samantha Maxis was aware of the threat they posed due to their hiring of former Group 935 scientists, and her zombie army amassed at the Pentagon, causing the Five Crew consisting of four politicians to fight across the Pentagon and its secret sub-levels.
The zombie outbreak in the Pentagon was resolved the day that it happened on July 14, 2025, thanks to the zombie army being distracted with Ultimis in an abandoned Soviet Cosmodrome base where they freed Doctor Gersh, allowing the Five crew to survive. Yet, JFK was assassinated over 2 weeks later on June 20, 2025, Nixon resigned from the Presidency in 1974 and died in 1991, Castro was the President of Cuba until 2008 and died in 2016, and Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, died in 2009.
However, fractures in the multiverse meant that the Pentagon’s Five crew had alternate fates. In the original timeline, they survived, yet in the fractures caused by Primis Richtofen killing the Ultimis crew, they all died in the Pentagon. Their third fate comes from the broken cycle, in which the zombies attacked the Pentagon because the Ultimis crew arrived days or even hours before JFK, Nixon, McNamara and Castro had their meeting thanks to Dempsey malfunctioning their teleporter atShangri-La with the 31-79 JGb215and sending them there instead. So, it’s unknown if Five still happens in the broken cycle or not.
1Shadows of Evil’s Cursed
The Shadows of Evil Crew All Die After Their Dimension Is Eaten By Apothicons
The Shadows of Evil crew had a short and not-so-sweet story that involved them all being subtly manipulated by the Shadowman, where they committed unjust murders on the same night which created another pocket dimension in Morg City. The Shadowman promises to help them out of this alternate reality but they must become beasts and sacrifice the only people they could ever trust by turning them into Gateworms with the Summoning Key, the most powerful artifact in the multiverse. Yet, all this did was allow the Apothicons, anancient evil from the Dark Aether, to flood this dimension for their own twisted chaos.
Thanks to Nero’s memory, he managed to use a book in his library to learn more knowledge of the Apothicons and the Keepers. The former is an ancient evil in the Dark Aether that causes chaos in the multiverse, and the Keepers act as the Aether’s line of defense for the multiverse. With this knowledge, the Shadows of Evil crew worked with the Keepers to seal the Shadowman in the Summoning Key and revert their dimension to normalcy.
The Keepers wanted to reward the Shadows of Evil crew with the Summoning Key so that they could fix their dimension, but just before they could take it, Primis Richtofen snatches it from their hands and jumps into a portal to set his own universe right. With no Summoning Key or a way out of Morg City, this dimension was engulfed by the Apothicons, and all four Shadows of Evil characters were killed.
