Voyage of Despair 'Former Life' Braille Cipher Solved in Black Ops 4 Zombies

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 released on Friday, October 12th, 2018, boasting a return to boots-on-the-ground Multiplayer, a series-first Battle Royale experience, and a content-packed Zombies mode. Likely due to the lack of a traditional Campaign mode, Black Ops 4 launched with four unique experiences for Zombies players to explore.

Serving as an introduction to the ill-fated Chaos storyline, Voyage of Despair features four intrepid adventurers board the RMS Titanic to pull off a daring heist involving a mysterious artifact. Little do Scarlett Rhodes, Diego Necalli, Bruno Delacroix and Stanton Shaw suspect that a giant iceberg will be the least of their problems.

Despite there being over 800 days since players first set foot in Voyage of Despair, it shouldn't surprise Zombies veterans that new secrets are being discovered to this day. YouTuber GlitchingQueen recently shared a look at an all-new cipher which was found within the zombie-infested ship.

Former Life Cipher

Hint

Shortly after the release of Black Ops 4, Treyarch held their annual 115 Day celebration; included in the festivities was an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session featuring Jason Blundell, the former Director of Zombies. Throughout the AMA, Jason answers various questions from the community, one of which involves the discovery that GlitchingQueen recently made.

"Another question from Twitter, from RichKillerTSM, he says," "Hi there, on one hand, I want to ask a question about ciphers, on the other hand, I don't want nor expect any hints."

"Good, I like to fulfill your expectations," Jason smugly replies.

"My question is, what is your favorite unsolved Zombies cipher, [and] which game [or] map is it from? Thanks in advanced." the question continues.

"I would say a couple of my favorites are actually in Voyage of Despair; there's actually quite a few. The only thing I would say - you said you don't want any hints - sure, you know, I don't want to cause a rumble." Jason answers, alluding to an unfound cipher.

Solution

Fast forward nearly two years following Jason's hint, Zombies fans can finally ease their minds.

In the Provisions section of the ship, an inconspicuous metal grate which resembles a 6x4 grid can be found on the floor. Standing on this grate will cause the player's control to rumble, depending which grid place the player is currently positioned on. Upon mapping out these interactions, patterns will begin to form which matches the braille alphabet. Using this discovery, we can fully decipher the plaintext of this secret, which reads as follows.

Running from your former life does not erase the sins of your past.

A total of 22 rumble patterns can be found from this interaction, all of which are displayed in the following images. Once the final pattern has been given, the rumble will not continue for the rest of the match.

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