It glows blue. It raises the dead. It basically broke the fabric of time and space because some Nazi scientists couldn't leave well enough alone.
If you’ve spent any time running circles around a pack of shambling corpses in a derelict theater or a swampy Japanese research outpost, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Call of Duty Zombies Element 115 is the literal heartbeat of the Aether story. Without it, we don't have the Ray Gun. We don't have the Perk-a-Colas. We certainly don't have Edward Richtofen losing his absolute mind across multiple dimensions.
But here is the thing. Most people think it’s just a "zombie rock." It’s way weirder than that.
The Real Science Behind the Fiction
Let's get the nerdy stuff out of the way first because it’s actually cool. Element 115 isn't just something Treyarch made up out of thin air to explain away a gameplay mechanic. It’s a real thing. Well, sorta.
In the periodic table, it's known as Moscovium.
Back in the day, before it was officially synthesized and named, Bob Lazar—a guy who claims he worked on reverse-engineering alien spacecraft at Area 51—put this stuff on the map. He claimed that Ununpentium (the placeholder name for 115) was used as a fuel source for UFOs. He said it created gravity waves. Treyarch’s writers clearly did their homework here. They took those real-world conspiracy theories about alien propulsion and turned them into the foundation for the most convoluted, beautiful, and frustrating story in gaming history.
In the real world, Moscovium is super unstable. It has a half-life of about 220 milliseconds. You blink, and it's gone. In the world of Group 935, however, they found a way to make it stick around.
How Element 115 Actually Works in the Lore
It’s an energy source. That is the simplest way to look at it. But it’s an energy source with a nasty habit of rewriting biology.
Group 935, led by Dr. Ludvig Maxis, originally wanted to use the element to help Germany win World War II. They weren't trying to make a zombie apocalypse. They were trying to create "super soldiers." The problem is that Call of Duty Zombies Element 115 has a specific side effect: it reanimates dead cells.
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If you're dead and you get exposed to it, you come back. But you don't come back as you. You come back as a mindless, hungry shell.
The Displacement of the Soul
This is where the lore gets really dark. It’s not just a virus like The Walking Dead or a fungus like The Last of Us. It’s metaphysical. When a body is exposed to 115, the soul is basically shoved out or corrupted. The "zombies" we fight aren't just corpses; they are physical vessels being piloted by the dark energy of the Aether.
Richthofen realized this early on. While Maxis was focused on the science, Richtofen was listening to the voices in the rock.
That’s another thing—115 is sentient, or at least it carries the influence of the Shadowman and the Apothicons. It’s a bridge between our world and the Dark Aether. When the characters interact with it, they start losing their memories. They get paranoid. They start seeing things. You can hear it in the character quotes as the rounds go up. Tank Dempsey starts forgetting who he’s fighting for. Takeo Masaki starts losing his connection to the Emperor.
It’s a slow-acting poison for the mind.
More Than Just Zombies: The Tech of Group 935
If you look around the maps, 115 is everywhere. It’s the blue liquid in the vats. It’s the glowing core of the Pack-a-Punch machine. Honestly, the Pack-a-Punch is probably the most impressive use of the element. It takes a standard kinetic weapon and uses 115 to "evolve" it, essentially pulling a more powerful version of that weapon from a different timeline or augmenting it with Aetherial energy.
Then you've got the teleporters.
The MTD (Matter Transference Device) was the crown jewel of Group 935. By using 115 to tear a hole in space-time, they could move objects from Point A to Point B. The catch? It didn't always work. Sometimes things came back... wrong. Sometimes they didn't come back at all.
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- The Ray Gun: Created by Dr. H. Porter, this uses 115-infused canisters to fire bursts of energy.
- Wunderwaffe DG-2: Richtofen’s masterpiece. It uses 115 to chain massive amounts of electricity between targets.
- Perk-a-Colas: Yes, even the drinks. They contain trace amounts of the element, which is why they give the characters superhuman abilities like faster reloading or the ability to take more hits. It’s also probably why they taste like "fermented herring" or "rotten chocolate."
Where Did It Come From?
For the longest time, we thought it just came from meteorites. Shi No Numa and Der Riese both featured massive 115 deposits that had crashed to Earth.
But then Origins happened.
We found out that 115 had been on Earth much longer than the 1940s. It was in Northern France during World War I. The truth is that the Apothicons—basically the Cthulhu-monsters of the COD universe—seeded the universe with 115. They threw these rocks through the rift to "infect" dimensions. It’s like a parasitic infection on a galactic scale. They send the 115, the 115 creates chaos and death, and that chaos thins the veil between worlds so the Apothicons can finally enter and consume everything.
It’s a trap. It was always a trap.
The Modern Connection: Dark Aether and Beyond
Even in the newer games like Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare III, the legacy of Call of Duty Zombies Element 115 persists, though it’s often referred to through the lens of "Exo-Element 115" or refined Aetherium.
The properties are the same. It still causes outbreaks. It still mutates the local flora and fauna. It still creates "Tempests" and "Mimics."
What’s interesting is how the tone has shifted. In the old school maps, 115 felt like a mystery. Now, in the newer lore, it's treated like a commodity. Governments are fighting over it. They want to weaponize it, just like Group 935 did. They haven't learned a single thing.
Why We Still Care
It's the mystery. Pure and simple.
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Treyarch managed to create a MacGuffin that actually feels dangerous. When you see a pile of 115 in a map, you know you’re in a place where reality is failing. You know that the air is toxic. You know that the dead are going to start clawing their way out of the dirt.
It’s the perfect narrative engine. It allows for crazy weapons, impossible locations like the Moon or a floating Alcatraz, and a story that spans billions of years.
If you want to dive deeper into the lore, I really recommend looking up the "Kronorium." It’s the in-game book that tracks the entire timeline. It’s a headache to read, but it explains how 115 isn't just a rock—it's the thread that ties every single map together.
What To Do Next
If you're looking to experience the "peak" of 115 lore, go back and play Origins on Black Ops 3 (Chronicles version). Pay attention to the environmental storytelling. Look at the giant robots, the staves, and the way the mud seems to be infused with that blue glow.
Then, compare that to the "Dark Aether" crystals in Cold War. You’ll see the evolution of the element from a rare, terrifying discovery to an industrial resource.
For the hardcore fans, keep an eye on the "Aetherium" upgrades in current titles. The developers are still pulling from the same playbook. The colors might change from blue to purple, but the soul of the story—that dangerous, addictive, world-ending power—remains exactly the same.
Go listen to the radios in Der Riese again. The fear in the voices of the scientists when they first realized what they found? That’s the real story of 115. It wasn't a breakthrough. It was the beginning of the end.