u/xcporter

Excuse the effort post, but I think I have a story worth telling.

Of all the Zombies EEs I’ve done over the years (nearly all of them) there is one that always eluded me:

Shangri-La.

You need four players, focused coordination, someone corralling the testy fire zombie. It’s a pain in the ass. I tried a few times as a kid with friends, always thwarted by someone’s bedtime or a call to the dinner table.

Eventually, I gave up. I accepted it. I’d never snag the Focusing Stone and enjoy the OG Perkaholic. I’d never restart Brock and Gary’s time loop. I’d never fulfill Richtofen’s grand scheme. I moved on.

I’ve also always been an achievement hunter. The sound of the cheevo popping. The relief of knowing you did it right. Adding to that cumulative gamerscore. It’s a blast. The only thing better is getting 100% of the achievements in a game. You walk away saying "I did everything."

Throwing it back to the old Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter days, the proverbial white whale was hitting six digits: 100,000G.

I grinded for that milestone, completing game after game. Borderline torturing myself for hours just to get one achievement. My pursuit was, admittedly, psychotic. Masochistic, even.

In 2011, I gave up on Black Ops 1. I had 70 of 71 achievements. The only one I was missing was, of course, Shang.

Flash forward more than 10 years. As an exercise in nostalgia, a friend and I embarked on an EE tour. We did every EE possible with two people: from Call of the Dead, to Tranzit, Revelations, Tag Der Toten. We counted 17 or so by the time we finished BO4.

All the while, I was passively inching closer to that 100,000G mark. My friend suggested making the final cheevo to put me at six-digits special.

He joked, “What if we did Shang?”

I laughed it off. How the hell would we do that? Who plays BO1 anymore?

But the more we talked, the more convinced my friend became that we could pull it off. I humored him. I lined up my gamerscore to exactly 99,925G, leaving the perfect 75G space for the “Time Travel Will Tell” cheevo.

We found two old friends and pulled them out of Zombies retirement like we were presenting a Marker to John Wick. I even sent them $15 to buy the Annihilation map pack.

We ran a couple attempts over the last week, with the usual things tripping us up—namely, the radio step between the mud room dials and the TNT step. Many incomplete guide's don't mention this part.

But last night, everything finally started clicking. We kept the fire zombie under control long enough, got through the steps that had stalled us before, and somehow made it all the way to the end with the run still alive.

Then we did it.

We fucking did it.

We beat the goddamn egg, finally. A dream I had long given up on. In completing it, I hit 100% in BO1 and reached 100,000G on the dot.

And guess what? We finished around 1 a.m. today.

You know what today is?

June 28, 2026.

You know when Shangri-La came out?

June 28, 2011.

We unintentionally completed the egg on the 15th anniversary of Shangri-La’s release.

To make it even more sentimental: my friend spawned in as Richtofen, and he was the one who pulled the Baby Gun from the box. It always felt lore-appropriate for the Doctor to hold the key wonder weapon during an egg.

And me? I spawned in as Takeo.

So I officially dedicate this run, my 100% completion of BO1, and my climb to 100,000G to Tom Kane.

Rest in peace, Tak. I hope you found that cherry blossom tree to sit under. COD Zombies will never be the same without you.

Just a wild, dare I say epic, confluence of events. I had to share. Thanks for reading. 💌 Watch the captured moment below.

https://reddit.com/link/1uidesh/video/xfmbz3ef84ah1/player