Who would have thought that after crossing the dimensional plane and entering the Place Below Creation, there would be a few locked doors that would be one of the Dark Aether’s biggest secrets? In Modern Warfare 3 Zombies, you will find several doors across Al Bagra Fortress that can be opened by finding keys that are hidden across this new area added in Season 1. We have previously made a full guide on how to enter the Dark Aether, so you can check out that guide if you are trying to figure out how to get to this endgame area. For those who have already made their way through the Dark Aether Rift and are trying to track down all of the keys and get the rewards locked behind these fortress doors, we have you covered!
Find more Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Guides here.
What Are The Locked Doors & Dark Aether Keys?
There are 5 different locations that can have locked doors that are opened with keys that you can discover across the Dark Aether. Some of these locations have multiple doors that can be unlocked with a total of 8 Keys that can be collected per game.
- The locations are Al Bagra Officers Quarters which has 2 locked doors, Al Bagra Munitions Storeroom which also has 2 doors, Al Bagra Barracks which only has 1 door, A.B.F Antiquities, which has only 1 door, and finally, the South Al-Bagra Top Floor Bedroom has only 1 door, for a total of 7 locked doors.
- Certain doors are guaranteed to have a Power-Up like a Max Ammo or Insta-Kill behind them but they all have the chance of spawning a Weapon Case for Wonder Weapons, making this a great way to farm these elusive weapons. Each key will be tied to a certain area and can only open one door. This means you will need to find a second key for an area to open the second door.
- All 8 Keys will always spawn in the same spot with 6 of these locations having the same key every single time. This means that no matter what, you will be able to open A.B.F Antiquities and Al Bagra Barracks doors as well as both of the doors at Al Bagra Officers Quarters and Al Bagra Munitions Storeroom.
Note: The 2 other keys, while available every match at the same locations, seem to have something wrong with them as in the games that we’ve played, and from what we’ve seen looking at footage of other players, two of these locations seem to be bugged and not working properly at the time of writing this guide.
Al Bagra Officers Quarters
Key Location
- The first Key we are going to get is the closest to the entrance of the Dark Aether. Go across the bridge that you spawn on and head to Sector F4. At the top of a zipline, you will find yourself in front of some ticket booths outside of Al Bagra Fortress’s main gate. Facing the Fortress, go into the one on the right and you will find your first key sitting on the counter.
- To get the second key for the Officers Quarters, head to the roof of the fortress and go to this tower in Sector F5. Here, you will see an excavator floating in the air. You will need to wait for it to lower and then jump onto it. Get across the vehicle and then jump to the next tower to find a key lying on the ground. You can also reach this spot by using the Scorcher Wonder Weapon or an Aether Tear.
Door Location
- To find the Officers Quarter doors, make your way into the Fortress and go to the room that you have to survive the Outlast Contract in, just above the Pack-a-Punch machine. Entering the room from the side with the PaP machine, immediately turn to the left and go up the stairs, through the door, and up another staircase to the next floor. Once here, go to the left and you will find a walkway with two locked doors. These are the Officers Quarters. You can look into each room to see what is inside.
Al Bagra Munitions Storeroom
Key Location
- The first Munitions Key were are going to cover is one that you should already be close to if you have already started your parkour course to get the second Officers Quarters key. From the key on top of the tower that you jumped across the excavator to reach, you will see an ambulance and a flatbed truck floating in the air. Jump across these two vehicles to another tower and this is where you will find your key.
- The second spawn for the Munitions Storeroom can be found by going all the way to the far west side of the map in this small building just outside the main warehouse in Sector B4. This key is found on a desk in the northern room facing the area where the ACV will spawn when you start the Escort Contract.
Door Location
- You can find these two doors on the ground floor of a building in Sector E5.
Al Bagra Barracks
Key Location
- You can track down this key by heading to the east end of the map. Head to Sector H5 and look for an apartment building. On the first floor, you can find a kitchen with a dining table. On this table is where you can find the Al Bagra Barracks key.
Door Location
- The Barracks door isn’t too far from the apartment. Go through the big gate that leads into the fortress next to the building where you found the key and go to G4. You will find the door on the first floor of a building.
A.B.F Antiquities
Key Location
- Go to the south part of the map just past the Outlast room. You are going to need to make your way beneath the fortress to find this key, which you can reach by going to the road just above the beach where you fought the Aether Worm Gorm’gant in the “Bad Signal” Mission. You can find a gate that you can go through to reach this underground area. You can also find a zipline in Sector H5 that will take you down to the lower level of the fortress. Whether you come down the zipline or come through the gate, you can find the A.B.F. Antiquities key on a box right next to the bottom of the rope.
Door Location
- You can find the door to the A.B.F. Antiquities room in the Outlast room. Enter the room from the side opposite the Pack-a-Punch machine, on the same side you find the zipline. Once in the room, go up the stairs on the right and you will find the door at the center of the hallway.
The Final 2 Keys
Note: The last keys require the player to perform an action to get them to spawn. These tasks aren’t anything crazy like some of the things you had to do to gain access to the Dark Aether and are actually very normal actions that you have probably already done tons of times during your time in Urzikstan.
Key Location
- The first key is found in the Dog House in Sector C3. Right near the dock is where the only Dog House in the Dark Aether will spawn. Place 3 or more Chunks of Flesh into the Dog House to spawn the friendly Hellhond and among the rubble of the now destroyed house is this key.
- The final Dark Aether Key can be found underground right beneath the main courtyard of Al Bagra Fortress in sector F4. Go right in front of the Pack-a-Punch machine and find an opening to drop down to an Infested Nest. Destroy all of the Cysts to clear out this area. Once you destroy the final Cyst, it will drop a Key.
South Al Bagra Top Floor Bedroom
If you haven’t experienced the bug, then one of these final 2 key locations should be where you find the South Al Bagra Top Floor Bedroom Key. You can bring this key to the east side of the map to Sector H4 and into a building. Take the staircase up to the 3rd floor and inside this room is where you will find the Bedroom door.
And with that, you now know where to find all of the keys and locked doors in the Dark Aether of Modern Warfare 3 Zombies. Enjoy building your arsenal of Wonder Weapons Cases. Check out our video guide above for reference on where to find each key and door.
