How To Complete The Terra Maledicta Main Easter Egg In CoD: Vanguard Zombies

Season 2 is live for Call of Duty: Vanguard, which introduces the new objective-based Zombies map Terra Maledicta set in Egypt's Eastern Desert. This new starting "Temple" hub also serves as a continuation of Vanguard Zombies' ongoing narrative of the Vanguard operators helping Professor Krafft search for a way to stop Von List and Kortifex from using an army of the dead to win World War II for the Nazis. Here we walk you through completing this storyline Easter egg.

How to complete Terra Maledicta's main quest

Step 1 Reach the Decimator Shield

When spawning into a match of Terra Maledicta, you'll get audio dialogue from Vercanna the Last that instructs you to collect a page from the Tome of Rituals. From here, you must simply complete the portal objective that's on the east end of the starting hub to reach the shield. Once the area Merchant Road is unlocked, you'll see the new Wonder Weapon called the Decimator Shield, but the weapon is currently trapped.

Step 2 Unlock the Decimator Shield

Audio dialogue tells you the history of the shield and that you must break four crystals to free it from its trap. You're told you must gain Vercanna's trust before you can break the crystals. From the starting hub, find the objective portal facing North and complete it to unlock access to the Tents area of the map with the Demonic Frenzy (Speed Cola) perk fountain.

Complete the objective and then you can come back to the area to find the speaker stone. The stone is located against one of the tents located opposite from the perk fountain. Interact with it to get audio from Vercanna.

Once the dialogue is finished, Vercanna will open up a portal right in front of you. Enter the portal and you'll need to complete a Purge objective. This works just like the standard Purge objective. You simply stand on the glowing rune circles and kill zombies until they disappear. You'll be automatically transported back to the map's starting hub, and more dialogue will inform you that the crystals have cracked.

You just need to shoot the four gold crystals above the starting hub. This will release energy back to the shield, but the weapon remains dormant. You must turn around and head back to the shield to get more dialogue.

Step 3 Wake the shield

Audio from Vercanna tells you that you must wake the shield. You must find and interact with the speaking stone near the Diabolical Damage (Double Tap) perk fountain to get the next step. Complete the portal objective at the Southwest side of the starting hub, which will be the Bazaar location.

The speaking stone is on the ground floor just inside the Bazaar's doorway. Interact with the stone to receive more dialogue. Finally, a new portal will appear.

Entering the portal will teleport you to the Dark Aether. Here you meet, Zaballa the Deceiver, a Dark Aether foe who is sided with Kortifex. You must protect marked locations on the map, while also doing damage to Zaballa. The three masks covering her face are her weak points, so aim for those to deal damage. Defeating Vercanna will teleport you back to the Decimator Shield, which will now be sitting on the ground for you to pick up.

Note: Picking up the shield will replace one of your two primary weapons. The shield is slow to charge its shock attack, so I recommend having it paired with something powerful like a Pack-a-Punched shotgun.

Step 4 Free the page

After a bit of dialogue, you're asked to go to the speaker stone near the Venomous Vigor (blue health regeneration perk) fountain, which is found in the Debris Field section of the map.

More story dialogue ensues after interacting with the stone, and then Vercanna opens up another portal. This portal returns you to the Dark Aether, where the page from the Tome of Rituals is anchored to the map via glowing red stands of energy. Activate the shield's shock ability (Left trigger on console) near the red orb-like anchors that are holding the page in place.

Destroying all four anchors will take some time to complete, as the shield only gets one use before you're given about a 90-second cooldown. Just keep moving and killing any zombies in your path while you wait for recharge. You'll know when it's recharged because you'll get an audio cue and both eyes on the shield will start glowing. After shocking all four anchors, move closer towards the floating page in the sky. The page will then float down to you. Grab the page and you'll be portaled back to the hub. A bunch of loot will spawn on the ground in front of you for your reward, and your Easter egg quest is complete.

Here is the complete perk guide for Terra Maledicta. And if you're new to Vanguard Zombies, there is also a prologue Easter egg on Der Anfang for additional story details that lead up to the introduction of Terra Maledicta and Vercanna the Last. You can also learn more about the narrative for Vanguard Zombies by locating and listening to radio intel around Der Anfang. Here is our complete guide for intel locations.