Black Ops 4 Zombies: Dead of the Night - How To Get The Vampire Stake

Vampires are a new addition in ‘Dead of the Night’, the first Zombies DLC map for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. These fiends are fast and poison you with their claws. They’re so tough, members of the community are begging for a nerf — and now fans have discovered a very secret method to unlock a deadly tool you can use to crush any vampiric foe. That’s right, you can earn a wooden stake. Perfect for piercing vampire hearts.

To actually get this anti-vampire stake, you’ll need to work closely with your team and solve a mind-boggling riddle. You might also want to turn up the brightness a smidge to easily read the multiple runes you’ll have to memorize. Even worse, you only get once chance to complete this Easter egg. Check out the full guide below — it’s pretty intense.

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How To Get The Vampire Stake | Knife Upgrade Guide

[NOTE: This can only be completed in Online / Classic Mode. Also, unlike many other challenges, if you fail any of these steps, you’ll have to reset the entire session. You only get one chance.]

To complete this Easter egg, you’ll need to unlock the Forest. This is the Pack-a-Punch area — see how to unlock the Pack-a-Punch in the full guide, linked above.

Step #1: Find The Rune Code

To get the Stake, you’ll need to first find a code with four symbols hidden in the Forest. Search the Forest for a lantern hanging from a tree — directly above the lantern, you’ll see a rune scratched into the bark.

There are a total of four runes you need to locate. All of them are near the lantern-tree. The runes need to be memorized in this order:

Rune #1: On the tree to the back-left of the lantern-tree w/ symbol.
Rune #2: On the lantern-tree. The first rune is directly above the lantern. Find this tree first.
Rune #3: Behind / slightly-right of the lantern-tree.
Rune #4: Behind and further right of the lantern-tree.

Looked at straight forward, you can see the trees / symbols are lined up from Rune #1 to Rune #4. Memorize the shape of each rune, and the order than they’ve appeared. The runes will spawn in a random order every single session.

Step #2: Input The Rune Code

To input the runes in the order you found them, you’ll need to locate stones with runes etched into them. The stones are located in the Greenhouse Terrace / Gardens area. There are four stones, and the runes etched into the stones are randomly generated. The stones always appear in the same four places.

NOTE: To activate a rune stone, you must shoot it with a Silver Bullet equipped gun.

There are four stone locations. Shoot them in the order listed in Step #1. Look for the rune on each stone before shooting.

Stone: Gardens – In the windowsill of the gazebo in the center.
Stone: Gardens – On the stone wall to the right of the Perk Machine.
Stone: Gardens – Left of the wallbuy weapon, outside the map.
Stone: Gardens – At the back of the fountain.

Shooting the stones in the correct order will give you a quote and a special effect.

Step #3: Get The Tree Branch

Purchase the Bowie Knife from the wallbuy at the Forest Terrace, and find a tree further left of the original lantern-tree (w/ rune) you found earlier. Look for a tree further left of the original set of four — it has a rune on all four sides of the tree.

Next, use the Bowie Knife and melee attack the runes in the same order you input them in the previous step. A numeral will etch into the rune if you attack the correct rune. Do this so a numeral etches on all four runes.

Next, shield bash all four runes with the Ballistic Shield. This can be done in any order — just hit them all. Once you shield bash all the runes, a tree branch will fall to the ground. Hold [Interact] to collect the branch.

Step #4: Complete The Ritual

Travel to the Cemetery and find the altar out front of the Perk Machine Mausoleum. [Interact] to place the branch on the altar — kill 12~ vampires near the altar and the branch will absorb the souls. The branch will glow when it is fully charged.

After charging the branch, collect it again and take it to the crafting workbench outside the Cemetery, on the Cemetery Path. You’ll now be able to craft the Stake. The Stake is an extremely powerful melee weapon, and can kill vampires easily, even at high rounds.

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