Call of Duty Season 4: Mercenaries of Fortune is now live, introducing traditional round-based Zombies gameplay to Vanguard with the addition of the "enhanced" Shi No Numa map. This is a map originally introduced in Call of Duty: World at War way back in 2008, and whether you're an OG Zombies fan or just new to Vanguard, there are some features and changes you'll want to know about before jumping into your first match on Shi No Numa.
The round-based Zombies survival experience is mostly traditional for this version of Shi No Numa, but the map does include Vanguard-style perks, as well as many of the game's additional features. Below we break down all the changes you can expect to find in Vanguard's Shi No Numa.
It's important to grab each perk as soon as you locate it, because you don't have to pay for the base perks in Vanguard Zombies. There's also no limit to how many perks you can have in Vanguard, so feel free to grab them all. Here is our complete perk fountain guide for Shi No Numa, including a breakdown of how each perk works and their locations on the map.
Vanguard's Altar of Covenants feature allows you to earn powerful buffs to equip as you progress in higher rounds. Covenants work a bit differently for Shi No Numa than they do on Vanguard's objective-style maps. You'll earn a Sacrificial Heart item for every three rounds completed on Shi No Numa, whereas you get a heart for every objective round completed on the objective-based maps.
These Sacrificial Hearts can be taken to the Altar of Covenants, where they can be exchanged for one of three randomized buffs. The selection of buffs will change at the Altar of Covenants every three rounds, so you can always swap out or wait for better buffs.
Death Blow is a great Covenant to choose. Headshots are important, especially in higher rounds, and Death Blow is a Covenant that will reward you for those critical kills by returning bullets to your clip. Resurrectionist is also a great Covenant choice when squading up in co-op, as this buff allows you to revive allies faster.
The Tome of Rituals also costs the Sacrificial Hearts item, and this feature allows you to upgrade your loadout's equipped artifact with additional abilities, which works similar to the ability upgrade tiers in Black Ops Cold War. The only difference is that these aren't permanent skill tier unlocks like Black Ops Cold War's version. These upgrades must be made for each match. For more details on the Tome of Rituals and how each upgrade affects each artifact, check out our full explanation of the feature.
In addition to the evolving Wall Buys, the Pack-a-Punch machine is also available to upgrade your weapons. Shi No Numa's Pack-a-Punch machine is found at the new Dig Site location. Treyarch announced a change to Vanguard's overpriced Pack-a-Punch upgrades for Shi No Numa. The cost for a level one Pack-A-Punch upgrade has been decreased from 7,500 to 5,000 Essence points, which reduces the price to Zombies' original cost for the first weapon upgrade.
Shi No Numa continues Treyarch's Dark Aether narrative, so if you're wanting to experience the full story for Vanguard Zombies, we have a narrative prologue guide for Der Anfang, and a main storyline Easter egg guide for Terra Maledicta. If you are looking for perk locations for Vanguard Zombies' objective-based maps, we have perk guides for both Der Anfang and Terra Maledicta.