Black Ops 6 is finally upon us, and like many others, I’m already obsessed with the newest iteration of its cooperative Zombies mode. At launch, Black Ops 6 has two maps, Liberty Falls and Terminus. The former is arguably the mode’s beginning map, and already features a slew of neat new mechanics, tricks, and secrets, including a vault that contains a bunch of randomized loot for players to unlock. Terminus, on the other hand, features an armory that functions in a similar fashion, though the Liberty Falls vault takes a more concerted effort to crack. The key to acquiring both stashes are the loot keys that you’ve likely been picking up from killing zombies.
As usual, Zombies loves a good easter egg and puzzle, and making sense of the vault, armory, and these loot keys isn’t as obvious as sticking one thing in another. First you must access the vault—which is a short and simple process that’ll likely sound more complex than it actually is—and the armory. Once you’re in, then you get to stick a key in a slot and get decent loot. Let’s break this down into a few digestible and easy-to-follow steps.
Loot keys and where to find them
Loot keys will be dropped by high-level enemies pretty regularly, And by “high-level enemies,” I mean elites that appear as a skull on your minimap. Essentially, killing Manglers, Abominations, and Amalgam are the only way to get loot keys to drop.
Loot keys, just like actual weapons in Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode, are tiered by rarity. In ascending order, they go green, blue, purple, and gold, and the higher the tier, the better the reward you’ll get from the vault or armory. Players can only hold a single key at a time, so if you’re visiting the vault and want to make your trip count, be sure you’ve got the right key for the job.
Cracking the vault
Now comes the slightly more convoluted part. In a bank at the center of town, there’s a vault whose combination takes three two-digit numbers. You will have to look for these numbers at different spots in town, including a comic book store, a bowling alley, and a desk right outside the vault itself. The numbers will be on yellow post-it notes that should be easily spotted once you know exactly where to look.
Furthermore, once you get all of the vault numbers, which are randomly generated every match, you need to input them in the right order. The numbers will appear on different sides of the sticky notes, from left to right. Note their placement as you’re memorizing the numbers themselves so that you can input the combination in one shot. Failure to do so will lock a player out of attempting for a few seconds, though another player could come along and input it themselves without having to wait.
Here’s all the spots where you can find vault numbers across Liberty Falls:
Inside the vault
Once the vault is open, a button prompt will invite you to enter, loading you into a separate instance. Inside the vault, you’ll be surrounded by walls of safe deposit boxes, though most of them can’t actually be looted. The ones that can will have a faint outline and a button prompt when you hover over them telling you to insert a key.
Once you’re loaded inside, a timer will begin counting down from 45 seconds, giving you time to input your loot key(s) and divvy up the rewards. These rewards range from weapons to killstreaks that can be deployed mid-match, which grant you a brief moment of invincibility while they’re in use. You can exit the vault of your own volition, but also take advantage of those 45 seconds, because that’s probably the most peace you’re going to get during the round. Fortunately, as a way to defend yourself from getting jumped by zombies that could be right outside, leaving the vault (or armory, for that matter) does cause a sort of explosion around your character that clears a path if there’s any obstacles.
Raiding the armory
Luckily for you all, the armory on Terminus is far easier to get into. Upon starting a match on Terminus, you’ll be asked to start up a series of generators that will restore power to the island, activating perk machines as well as the Pack-a-Punch upgrade station, but they’ll also open some doors around the map. The very first generator actually opens up a pair of doors right outside the building it’s in, and following the path on the left will take you down a set of steps and into the room that houses the armory.
Similar to the vault on Liberty Falls, you’ll enter the armory and initiate a timer that’ll boot you from the room once it’s done. Until then, use the loot keys you’ve gathered to access lockers in the armory and gain randomized rewards.
And that’s about everything you need to know about using the loot keys at the vault in Liberty Falls and the armory in Terminus. Their implementation across both maps seems to suggest that we should get used to seeing loot keys in future maps. There are undoubtedly even more secrets to get to the bottom of across both maps, too, so buckle up and remember to take cover in that vault and armory once you’ve cracked them.
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