What to prepare before attempting a Zombies Main Quest

Main Quest attempts rarely fail because someone did not know a step. They fail because the team arrives at step six with no points, no ammo, a downed player, and a round timer that has stopped being generous.

Almost all of that is preventable, and almost all of it is decided before the first step.

This is a preparation checklist. It applies across round-based Zombies maps and across continuities — the specific steps differ enormously, but what a team needs to have before starting them does not.

Read the whole quest first#

Before anyone loads in, read the entire quest through to the end. Not the first three steps. The whole thing.

You are looking for four specific things:

1. Hard requirements. Does a step need a particular wonder weapon, a specific perk, an upgraded item? If so, obtaining it is not part of the quest — it is a prerequisite, and it needs its own plan.
2. Timed or pressured steps. Steps with a timer, a defence, or an escort change what you need in reserve. Identify them in advance so nobody spends the resources you will need there.
3. Steps that split the team. Anything requiring simultaneous action in different places determines your role assignment.
4. Points of no return. Steps that lock you out or start a boss sequence. Everyone should know which step that is before somebody triggers it by accident.

That last one is worth saying plainly: agree who is allowed to trigger the point of no return. A surprising share of failed runs are a teammate interacting with something helpfully.

Assign roles before you load in#

Four players with no roles produce four players doing the same thing. Assign these explicitly:

Trainer. Holds a group of zombies together in a safe running spot so the round does not end and the rest of the team can work. This is the most important role and the one most likely to go unassigned. The trainer does not do quest steps.

Runner. Executes the steps that require moving around the map. Should be the player who has read the quest most carefully.

Support. Handles revives, keeps the team supplied, manages the power and any map utilities. Carries the revive-enabling perk if the map has one.

Flex. Assists the runner on multi-person steps and covers whoever goes down.

In a two- or three-player run, collapse these — but keep the trainer. A round that ends while you are mid-step is how attempts unravel.

The points budget#

Agree a points floor: a number nobody spends below except for a genuine emergency.

The floor exists because most quests have at least one step that costs points unexpectedly — a door, a machine, a reroll, a purchase you did not plan for. A team that is collectively broke at that moment has to farm a round or two, which usually means the round scaling gets ahead of them.

A workable default is to hold enough for the most expensive single purchase on the map, per player. If you do not know what that is, hold more.

Spend order early on#

Early rounds are cheap and the zombies are slow. That is the window for setup, and the order matters:

1. Power, if the map gates anything behind it.
2. The perk that keeps you alive — whatever the map's revive-and-survive perk is. Buy it before anything that makes you deadlier.
3. A reliable weapon. Not necessarily the best one; one you can sustain ammo for.
4. Pack-a-Punch access, once the above is stable.
5. Everything else.

The common error is buying damage before survivability. A team that cannot revive itself loses the run to one bad down, and no amount of weapon upgrade prevents that.

Ammo economy#

Ammo is the resource that quietly ends attempts. Two habits fix most of it:

Do not kill with your good weapon. Trainers and general round clearing should use whatever is cheap and sustainable. Save upgraded and wonder weapons for the moments the quest actually demands them — bosses, defences, and anything that has to die quickly.

Know your resupply. Whatever the map's ammo source is, know where it is and roughly what it costs before you need it. Discovering that mid-defence is too late.

The pre-attempt checklist#

Run through this before starting step one:

• Everyone has read the full quest, including the ending.
• Roles assigned, and the trainer knows their spot.
• Points floor agreed.
• Every player has the survivability perk.
• Any hard-requirement item is already obtained, not "we'll get it on the way".
• Ammo resupply location known.
• The point of no return identified, and one person nominated to trigger it.
• Everyone knows which step is next, at all times.

That last item is a running requirement rather than a one-off check. The team should be able to answer "what are we doing right now" at any moment. When that answer becomes unclear, stop and re-establish it before continuing — a confused team burns rounds faster than a slow one.

Where to find the steps themselves#

This checklist is deliberately map-agnostic, because the preparation is the part that transfers. The steps do not: every map has its own quest, its own wonder weapon, its own sequence, and its own set of hidden requirements, and those are documented far better in a proper reference than they would be in an article like this.

For the actual step-by-step — Main Quest and side quest documentation, wonder weapon acquisition, Easter eggs and ciphers, perk and power-up details, and the story context for each map — use CODZombie. Look up your specific map there, read it through once, and then come back to this checklist before you queue.

Prepare here. Follow the steps there.