Zombies Terminology Glossary

Welcome to the Zombies Terminology Glossary!

Whether you're brand new or a seasoned player looking to brush up on the latest lingo, this page is your guide to the words, phrases, and shorthand used throughout the game’s community. From essential gameplay jargon to slang born in chatrooms and strategy guides, you'll find clear explanations to help you understand what players mean and how to speak the language yourself!

Terms

SPH (seconds per horde)

How many seconds it takes to kill a horde (24 zombies, 18 on WW2, 30 on CW, etc.). This will determine how long a game is. Lower the SPH, faster the game. A horde is the max amount of zombies that can be on the map at once.

AAT

 Alternate Ammo Type. This would be describing pap'ed effects on weapons such as Turned, Blast Furnace, Shatterblast, etc.

Instakill rounds (instas)

instakill rounds are rounds in which the zombie health is so high it is over the bit limit so it is reset below 0. Therefore, making the zombies instakill for the whole round.

Drop Cycle

The drop cycle is the concept in zombies describing what your drops are and in what order. You must complete a cycle of drops in order to get the drops again. For example, let's say your first drop of the cycle is an instakill. Then, in order to get another one, you must get all the other drops first. Once you have gotten all the other drops, the cycle resets and you can get an instakill again. Every cycle puts the drops in a new random order. Some things can effect the drop cycle such as the pods on Shadows of Evil or moving the mystery box for the first time (adds fire sales to the cycle).

Gum Cycle

The Gum cycle is the same concept as the drop cycle. You have 5 gobblegums and you must cycle through all 5 gums in order to receive any gum again. You do not have to eat the gum for it to count towards the cycle. You only have to buy the gum. Each gum cycle is practically random, but where your gums are placed in your loadout does effect how likely they are in certain spots of the cycle. For instance, the game placed 2nd (2nd from the left) is a little more likely to appear first in each gum cycle.

RNG

Randon Number Generator. This is what is used to determine all the randomness of every zombies game. So when someone says they have, "bad rng", they are just saying they have gotten bad luck. Many things in the game are based on odds. For example, the first dog round on Kino Der Toten is on round 5, 6 or 7. So, the "rng" of any specific round is a 1/3. Players use this logic to calculate the odds of certain games and certain things to come. Knowing this does not make you any luckier, but it can help you predict outcomes and times (and sometimes brings a peace of mind to players).

Spawn Delay

Spawn delay is when certain enemies spawn that cause a slight delay for the next enemy spawning. The more enemies you get that create this spawn delay, the slower your game is. On BO3 for example, spiders, meatballs, dogs and more create this spawn delay. This also is true for BO1 and BO4 nova crawlers. This is why you see the Kino high round without any crawlers.

Lineups

Lineups are what players use to be able to hit certain targets from long range. For example, on the Revelations easter egg, player use lineups to hit certain targets with the summoning key. These lineups save A LOT of time in any speedrun attempt. 

Full Hording

This term is used to describe a method of playing a high round game. This is when you alow for the full horde (max number of zombies allowable on the map) to gather up so you can kill them all at once (like with a Thundergun) or train them to aquire perks.

Quote Skip

 This is when you do something in the game to override the quote to skip it. Speedrunners use this technique to save time by skipping long quotes. Players will purposely down themselves at a specific time at the end of the Der Eisendrache easter egg in order to skip the final quote which forces the ending cutscene to play sooner.

Map Reset

Map reset is the time it takes for the map to hit its entity limit and "resets" causing the game to either error or go back to round 1. The timer starts once you start the game and continues as you play. Time paused does not count towards the reset timer. Every map has its own reset time and there are things you can do to extend or accelerate the time to reset. For example, downing 3 times to remove QR on shang extends the reset; however, traps while on shorten the reset.

25 Day Error

The 25 day error is when you leave the game open for 25 days and your screen goes black. There is no legit way to avoid this error, but, if you wait another 25 days, the blackscreen effect does go away. This does not exist on World at War.

Human Grapple

Human grapple is a trick used in the Shadows of Evil easter egg where the player exits beast mode but still grapples to a hook location. This can be done by look exactly opposite of the desired hook when entering beast mode, and then spamming your weapon swap bind/button once exited from beast mode. If you do this, you have a split second where if you press your grapple key/button while weapon swapping, you can grapple to that hook as a human. 

Force Drops

This term is used for when players purposely kill zombies in order to make drops (instakill, max ammo, etc.) spawn in. Players will do this in order to acquire a max ammo at an desired time during a high round. How do you "force" drops when you always kill zombies? Killing zombies in certain ways prevents drops from spawning which makes "forcing" a drop possible. Ways to kill without having the chance of a drop to spawn would be like killing with a trap or killing zombies outside of windows.

Trading

 This term is used when a player runs out of ammo on a wonder weapon and gets rid of it via wallbuy and reacquires it through the mystery box. High round players do this instead of waiting for max ammos to save a lot of time. Some high rounds, like BO1 Ascension, are heavily based on your trade average (average box purchases to get the weapon back).

Box Error

The box error occurs when you use the mystery box too many times and your game errors. This happened most notably on Call of the Dead high round. 

Basketball

Basketball refers to the step of the Revelations easter egg where the player has the summoning key and throws it at artifacts to collect them.

Spawn Manip

Spawn Manip, aka spawn manipulation, is the term used to describe players doing certain things (typically standing and looking at a specific spot), to force the zombies to all spawn in a certain spot. The Shadows of Evil easter egg uses this trick multiple times. One example would be when charging the egg in the waterfront district, players will teleport into the area, place the egg, and immediately go to the window to the right and stare into it. This forces zombies virtually all zombies to respawn in this location which allows players to fill the egg extremely fast.

Darkness

Darkness is a visual bug that happens during a high round. What happens is that section of the map lose all color and just turn black with a skybox. Players must navigate the darkness or avoid it as there really is no way to remove the darkness. 

Torso Zombie

A torso zombie is a phenomena where a zombie just becomes a floating torso. Torso zombies occur when you activate a fireworks AAT past round 112. When the fireworks goes off, it can create torso zombies (torsos). These zombies are instakill once they become torsos.

Invisible Zombie

An invisible zombie is quite literally an invisible zombie. This can happen in a few ways. Zombies killed by thunderwall, the thunderwall effect of turned, and planting rags on Der Eisendrache are all ways to create invisible zombies. Invisible zombies are instakill. Players usually notice an invisible zombie when they see nothing but they are colliding with something, but they also tend to kill them when they shoot into the horde to activate their AAT.

G-spawn

G-spawn is an error that occurs when you kill too many zombies at once in a spawn. For example, if you shoot a ground spawn in the junction of Shadows of Evil with a death machine, if multiple zombies spawn in a row at that spawn you are shooting at, it can cause a G-spawn error. 

C.I.

A c.i. is an error that occurs in a multitude of ways. C.I. stands for "Connection Interrupted." This error is avoidable but only occurs when you do too much of something (or when you literally have your connection interrupted). For example, if you shoot too many arms/cameras off of valkerie drones on Gorod Krovi, you will eventually get a connection interrupted error.

Round Skip

This is the term used when players want to end (skip) the current round they are on as fast as possible. This term is mainly used by easter egg speedrunners.

Death Barrier

A death barrier is when the player enters a certain area that the game thinks you should not be in. When this happens, you will instantly die. This usually happens in areas of the map that are not "unlocked" yet. 

Patch

A patch is something a player uses to modify the game to make certain things more likely or guaranteed. For example, on BO3, high rounders are allowed to "patch" the box (called a "box patch") so they get certain items guaranteed in the first few hits of the box. For example, Shangri-La high round players are allowed to patch the box so the first two hits are the monkey bombs and babygun. Patches are not always allowed and if they are allowed, only very specific things are allowed depending on the game and map. Having a patch not approved by the player ruleset is CHEATING.

Bando-Swapping

Bando-swapping is a technique used on BO4 where you have secret sauce as any perk slot and repurchasing secret sauce to get Bandolier Bandit over and over again. Each time you get Bandolier Bandit, you gain more ammo, and eventually, you will be back at max ammo. This was used a lot on the Tag high round until a new strategy made bando-swapping obsolete.

Injecting/Injection

Injection is a method of implementing a patch/mod into the game in a more undetectable manner. When discovered, this was used as a method of cheating; however, now it is used for strat testers. Injecting itself is not cheating. Secretly injecting and not telling anyone is (given what they are injecting is something that is banned).

Strat Tester

A strat tester is a patch that allows for the player to edit a range of things in the game in order to practice strategies. Most high round players use this tool to help them improve their gamepay before attempting a long high round game. This method is also used by speedrunners to test routes and camping spots. 

X-spawn

X represents the number of spawns in a certain camping spot. For example, the Shadows of Evil high round strategy is called a 2-spawn. This means, where they main strategy is played, simply has only 2 spawns (ground & window). Another example would be on ZNS at the plane trap area. If players stay in the area between the skull alter and mystery box location, it becomes a 3-spawn (tall cliff, small cliff, box window).

Round End Time

Round End Time is the theoretical time it takes for a round to finish in zombies when the game is allowed to spawn every zombie as fast as programmed. On earlier zombies games like World at War, BO1, BO2 and BO3, each round has a fixed number of zombies based on the round and player count, a spawn delay between each zombie, and a small extra network frame delay per spawn.The round’s perfect time can be calculated using the following equation: (number of zombies × (spawn delay + network frame)) − (spawn delay + network frame). Some factors can extend a round’s end time, such as a Valkyrie Drones on Gorod Krovi or Spiders on Zetsubou. Round End Times are used by high round players, easter egg speedeunners, round speedrunners, and anyone trying to play fast to improve overall pace. It’s nearly impossible to hit the “perfect” calculated time. The goal rather is to try and get as close to it as you possibly can. A good example of how this can be useful is power up timing. Knowing when a round should end lets you save or line up an insta-kill or nuke to finish the round as fast as possible.

Zombie Cap (A Full Horde or Spawn Cap)

Zombies has a limit to how many zombies can be on the map at once. For WaW, BO1, BO2, BO3 and BO4, the Zombie Cap is 24 zombies whereas on other games, the Zombie Cap is different (i.e. WW2 is 18 and CW is 30). If you’re killing fast enough, the game can keep spawning new zombies and as such, the intended Round End Time would be accurate; however, if at any point you have the max amount of zombies on the map (hitting the Zombie Cap), the game can’t spawn any more zombies until some are killed. This disrupts the spawn flow causing the round to be longer than the calculated Round End Time.

Spawn Boosting

In BO4, CW, BO6, BO7, and VG zombies, the zombie spawn rate scales directly with how fast you are killing the zombies; the faster you kill zombies, the faster they spawn in. These games still have Round End Times, but are affected by the spawn rate boost. This topic is more nuanced than it seems, as there are subtle mechanics in some of these games that make killing as fast as possible not always the best or fastest strategy. One example of this would be on BO4, on a 4 player round speedrun past round 12, killing zombies as fast as possible is actually slower than letting them spawn in. Ideally, you have between 15-20 zombies on the map to stay above the slower spawn rate from killing too fast but also staying below the Zombie Cap so the zombies continue spawning. BO4 is the only game where killing too fast can be slower. This is due to the fact that under a certain number of zombies on the map, the game has a set spawn rate, and past a certain round that depends on the number of players in the game, the natural spawn rate for that round is actually faster than that set spawn rate.

Breach

A breach happens when a player moves outside the zone of where the strategy is ran causing zombies to begin spawning from locations far from the intended area(s). This can lead to time loss in a speedrun as you would have to wait for the breachers to reach you. Breaching can also introduce carpenters into the drop cycle as zombies may tear down more windows on a no carpenter strategy. Breaching can also spawn in other enemy types. For instance, on BO1, if you breach into the spawn room after power is turned on, you will get nova crawlers if you play in fire trap room whereas if you did not breach into spawn, you would never get nova crawlers in fire trap room. 

Spawn Cancelling (clogging)

Spawn cancelling, also known as clogging, is when you stop a zombie spawn from ever spawning zombies again. How it works depends on the game. For example, on BO1 Shangri-La, if you are doing semtex strat and kill the celling spawn zombies to fast, you can completely cancel the spawn. What this means is zombies will NEVER spawn there again. On IW, simply placing an item like C4, trip mines, any buildable, etc. near a spawn will disable that spawn, and the item being removed from the spawn will reactivate it. Some boards have banned spawn cancelling and it remains a controversial topic with opinions varying on whether it should or shouldnt be allowed.