
As a matter of fact, players may have already discovered some pages from Krafft’s diary during Black Ops Cold War Zombies, if they looked in the right places! The Vanguard Special Forces have come to Stalingrad in response to a distress call sent by Professor Krafft, a demonologist blackmailed into the service of Von List. How do our Special Forces operatives fit into this? In addition to sharing their valuable combat abilities, these entities will guide players, encouraging them in battle and assisting them through various challenges in iconic locations. The Mask of Bellekar grants her Aether Shroud power, the Horn of Norticus grants Frost Blast, and the Dragon of Saraxis grants Energy Mine. Pick up the Sword of Inviktor and gain his Ring of Fire attack. Each of them gives access to a different ability. When a human interacts with one of the artifacts, they form a connection with its corresponding Dark Aether entity. How do our human characters interact with these entities? Players will learn more about these entities and their revolt against Kortifex as they progress deeper into the game. Bellekar the Warlock is a master of Dark Aether rune magic, fascinated by humans and their warlike ways. Inviktor the Destroyer is the ultimate frontline fighter, at home in the thick of battle and always out for blood. Saraxis the Shadow is a witty, wicked trickster who sees humans as playthings. Norticus the Conqueror once led Kortifex’s armies in the Dark Aether - now they’re sworn enemies. Kortifex shares his power to reanimate the dead, and now the world is in danger of being overrun by an army of Nazi zombies. His soldiers have plundered the globe for mystical items, and their search paid off with an artifact that has symbiotically bonded Von List with a former lord of the Dark Aether, Kortifex the Deathless. Our main villain is Oberführer Von List, commander of the SS battalion Die Wahrheit. So, we have new characters in a different setting than in Black Ops Cold War Zombies, but the same level of high stakes with global implications.


Only a small band of Allied Special Forces soldiers who have forged a similar bond with their own Dark Aether entities stand in his way. The dimensional breach activates long-dormant artifacts collected by the Nazis, granting SS commander Wolfram Von List an opportunity to bond with a lord of the Dark Aether and single-handedly win WWII for the Third Reich. In fact, the cyclotron incident at Endstation is what sparks the events in Vanguard Zombies. We’ll get a better sense of what was happening in the Dark Aether before the events at Projekt Endstation changed everything. Vanguard Zombies reveals that entities from the Dark Aether dimension had contact with humans, going back centuries. How does Vanguard Zombies progress the Dark Aether storyline?
