This guide is very long and I want to apologize beforehand – I wanted to try and cover as much as I could as efficiently as I could. I haven’t written a guide this long, so any feedback is very welcomed.
First and foremost, this achievement is likely to take roughly 30 or so hours if you do everything legit and you’re efficient at completing missions. Prepare for the long haul, and if you knock off time then great. Personally, I had a total of 3 dev errors/crashes, 6 of the same mission not dropping the item needed to complete the mission (Storm the Castle, Act 3), and multiple instances of being forced into a story mission due to a current bug. That being said, I’m going to list the missions below and any tips I thought necessary. Also working on a video guide to help with some tips and tricks surrounding some of the harder/more annoying contracts.
The Basics:
It’s important to keep in mind what loot you have, what you can exfil with, and what you can infill with. Each of your characters keep on their persons EQUIPPED plate vests, self revives, gas masks, bags, and kill streaks. Note that I said EQUIPPED – these items left in your bag DO NOT EXFIL and will be turned into xp at the end of the match. Only what you have currently equipped can be taken into the next match.
The items that can be exfilled INSIDE THE BAG are as follows: Weapon upgrades (such as the tools that upgrade the rarity of your weapon, ammo modifications, and pack-a-punch crystals), plans/schematics for the various perk cans, and the perk cans themselves. These items go into your overall stash, which can be accessed by selecting one of the open slots of your backpack while in the menu.
With this in mind, it’s important to know when to keep or use items. For each of the story missions, I made sure to bring with me the best weapon I could (Rare/Blue rarity or higher, and as high pack-a-punch as I could get), as well as a full 3 plate vest, self revive, and a killstreak of some kind. I would save a few of the rare or higher tools and pack-a-punches I got through rewards or looting for some of the harder missions, but of course you can always grind out these items if need be.
I am ONLY going to list the missions that I believe I can give helpful insight on. It isn’t beneficial to list every single mission as some are very simple and straight forward.
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ACT ONE:
All of these missions can be rolled forward, meaning that when you complete the mission you can immediately go onto the next without exfiling, BESIDES missions that require you to exfil (mission 1 for example).
Tier 1 – Road Rage – You can repair a vehicle tire by simple shooting it a few times until it pops, getting close, and holding button to repair. Some were overthinking and trying to pop tires by driving off cliffs. When you’re going for the 30 zombie kills running over, your vehicle will likely die prior to achieving the kills unless you take it to a gas station to repair.
Tier 2 – Interceptor – The mission everyone seems to have issue with, destroying a mercenary convoy. These are found randomly on the map driving around in a CONVOY OF THREE ARMORED VEHICLES! Don’t mistake the single vehicles driving around as a convoy, it is always three together. They aren’t necessarily hard to destroy but many have had issues finding them to begin with. I recommend getting a vehicle, gassing it up to max, and driving around on the MAIN HIGHWAY THAT GOES AROUND THE ENTIRE MAP. The convoys are very often near the highway or on it. Better with 2 or more people that can go different directions to find it. You might not find it the first match or two, just keep on it – I promise it’s possible.
Tier 3 – Freezer Burn – I saw a lot of comments regarding the “slow 10 hellhounds with cryo freeze ammo mod” and the best advice I could give was to do the ESCORT missions, as I was very often getting a dozen or so dogs each time – at least in tier 2. They will spawn in tier 1 missions but the higher difficulty, the better it seems. - - - Using an unpacked weapon with low damage such as a pistol or shotgun (at range) in the medium threat zone seems to help the process a bit. (thanks sjpsjpsjp)
Tier 3 – Saboteur – shooting down reinforcement choppers are super easy with a single pack-a-punched grenade launcher, which you can bring in as an insured weapon. There’s a mission later on that requires you to shoot down 3 helicopters, and I used the packed grenade launcher to easily pass it.
Tier 3 – Automated Backup – NOTE THAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR AMMO MOD CIRCUITS! There are regular turret circuits and ones that have ammo modifications just like your own guns! You are looking for the circuits with ammo mods, and the best place I farmed these were INFECTED STRONGHOLDS – not the small nests. They can be rather difficult, so take your time combing through for the yellow cysts and the rewards at the end are generally decent. You need 3 of these ammo mod circuits, find the white turret icon on the map, add the circuit in and wait for it to die again or find other turrets.
Tier 4 – Infiltrator – Stronghold keycards are obtained by either purchasing from the store for $2,000 or looting from a mercenary camp, which look like little tents on the map. Mercenaries are pretty tough, even in the beginning areas, so take your time, bring armor plates, and preferably a self-revive if you’re working alone. You open the stronghold via card, kill a dozen or so enemies, more come as reinforcements via chopper, and you want to drill to open the large safe within the building that produces the record/item you need for the last part of the mission.
Tier 5 – Blasted – I had a lot of difficulty getting the Shatter Blast destroyed armor on zombies and the best way I found was to take a DEFAULT SHOTGUN (not packed or rare), put the Shatter Blast ammo mod on it, and gather GROUPS of armored zombies – likely in tier 2 or through contracts. If you get them together in a group and fire away, it seemed like it was more likely to get multiple additions to your counter. IT CAN TAKE ROUGHLY 30 SECONDS BETWEEN EACH MODDED EFFECT TO TAKE PLACE AGAIN! Don’t just blast away like crazy – if you notice you got an elemental hit, keep the zombies running and wait a good 30 seconds and go again.
Tier 5 – Hostile Takeover – Safes are super easy to find, do the “Raid Weapon Stash” contracts or Mercenary strongholds.
ACT 1 STORY MISSION – Not the hardest thing in the world, just bring decent (pack-a-punch level 1 or 2) guns, a self-revive, and you shouldn’t have problems. There are waypoints to show you where to go. A sentry turret can go a long way here, as well as any of the turret circuits mentioned above, as there is a sweet turret that can be used at the very end to get a bunch of xp.
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ACT TWO
As of right now (11/15/2023), these missions DO NOT roll forward like Act 1 missions do, meaning you have to exfil after completing each mission. I’m not sure if this intended or will change in the future, just keep in mind when going into each mission.
Tier 1 – Same Day Delivery – Don’t be afraid of the attack chopper shooting at you, he doesn’t seem to do much damage. Have done this solo by driving forward a bit, switching to turret to do damage, and switching back.
Tier 2 – Reaper – Harvester Orbs are the big purple orbs of energy randomly flying around. I found them very easy to find in the tier 2/medium threat zone, particularly on the southern side of the map. They fly erratically as you shoot them, and if you go too long without damaging it they will teleport out.
Tier 2 – Shocked – IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE FOR THIS AND EVERY MISSION REQUIRING YOU DO STUN/FREEZE/ETC SPECIAL ZOMBIES THAT YOU DO NOT DO BOUNTY CONTRACTS FOR IT! I know for a fact that at least the mission that requires you to freeze mimics, you are NOT able to freeze the mimics from bounties! When you get to ANY mission that requires special zombies, either run around the medium threat zone or do ESCORT contracts, which seem to produce a good number of special zombies.
Tier 3 – Essence of Aether – This is a mission that requires you to find pre-placed containers around the map. It is best that you google the locations for accuracy, they’re in the same place every time. I’ll put the locations in my own video guide at some point, but until then – google is your friend here.
Tier 5 – Frost Bite – As mentioned above, the mimics from Bounty contracts do NOT seem to count. It’s best to find mimics in the wild, in/around Infected Strongholds (medium threat), or through Escort missions (decent spawn rate).
Tier 5 – Exterminator – I believe the 2.5 minute timer starts when you accept the contract, so have a vehicle nearby. Whether you’re solo or with friends, place one of the little radar support items near 1-2 spores at a time and once they break the outer shell and show red, shoot them and continue.
ACT 2 FINAL STORY MISSION – I actually did this solo but it was rather difficult. With others, it isn’t so bad, and I recommend the same as the Act 1 story mission – full gear such as self-revive, airstrike, plate vest, etc. KEEP YOUR KILLSTREAK FOR THE END OF THE MISSION! You will have to do an Escort-like mission and keep a vehicle alive, and at the end you will be contested by a Mega Abomination that can do some serious damage. I personally took in a Juggernaut killstreak just for this guy, and had a buddy use a mortar on the vehicle to keep zombies away.
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ACT THREE
PLEASE NOTE THAT MULTIPLE MISSIONS HAVE BUGGED FOR MYSELF AND OTHERS I’VE SPOKEN TO! If your mission states that you need to collect some item after a contract or kill and you CAN’T find it – it’s likely bugged and you’ll have to redo what you just did.
Tier 2 – Ghosted – this was one of my least favorite contracts in the game. Killing 20 mercenaries while under the THREE SECOND INVISIBILITY was awful. My friend had the idea of maybe calling in a precision air strike on one of the mercenary camps or even the big Legacy Fortress and timing the invisibility right as the precision hits, but I haven’t tested myself to confirm if it’s good or not. Every single time I attempted a decent run of this, I would only get 2-3 kills with the ability active. You might have to grind this one out over a long instance.
Tier 2 – Paint the Target – Precision airstrikes can be found at buy stations for $5,000 (Medium difficulty and up – sometimes they spawn in Easy areas but not always). Same as before – find a mercenary convoy of three vehicles, get them to stop, call in the strike, and it’s easy from there. Once the convoy stops, they don’t start up again, so no worries about them driving off.
Tier 2 – Crash and Burn – Pack-a-punched grenade launcher is your friend! You can get helicopters to spawn easily from the Ground Control and Aether Extraction contracts, as well as the Mercenary Strongholds.
Tier 3 – Storm the Castle – This was the one for me. I had to complete the Legacy Fortress a total of 6 times before the Warlord finally dropped what I needed to complete the mission. I recommend going into the fortress kitted out with a self-revive and teammates, if possible. This isn’t fun or easy, but once you get the hang of it it becomes less tedious. Completing a merc camp gets you a merc stronghold key, completing the stronghold and opening the safe gets you the Fortress key, and entering and killing the Warlord in the middle building SHOULD get you the Strauss’s Research. THE WARLORD WILL DROP THE ITEM, so if it doesn’t appear I’m sorry, but you have to Exfil and start a new match and do it over again.
Tier 4 – Closing Time – The Aether Storm is the radiation-like circle found randomly on the map. It’s the storm circle that eventually starts to expand towards the end of the match, and within this storm is the special zombie disciple named “Stormcaller”. He isn’t THAT difficult, but it can be a bit of a pain. I recommend getting as good as guns as you can, finding him in the circle, and luring him towards the edge and shooting at him from outside of the circle. PLEASE NOTE!!!! IF HE DIES AND YOU ARE NOT INSIDE OF THE STORM CIRCLE, YOU WON’T GET PROGRESS! Run inside the circle prior to him dying completely and you should get credit!
Tier 4 – Spring Cleaning – High Threat Zone is NO joke, and I recommend going in as heavy as you can when you pursue contracts and missions inside of the zone. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and die. I recommend utilizing monkeys or the purple orb tactical that sucks in zombies when doing this high threat infected stronghold. BRING A GAS MASK, and be wary of your surroundings!
THE FINAL MISSION – I didn’t think the final mission was difficult at all. 2 friends and I went in with green rarity weapons, with at least 1 gun each being pack-a-punched to level 2. I brought in 2 sentry turrets that I set up for the final boss and filled the rest of my bag with armor plates. Stay away from the boss and fire at the exposed areas between his armor (purple shroud like areas) and you shouldn’t have that much of a problem with him. We only had 1 person go down during the entire mission, but you should still bring self-revives per usual. Once you take down the boss, the achievement should pop and you have finished all available contracts – and got arguably the best free skin COD has offered so far!