If you have been running Astra Malorum for a while, chasing every little secret the map hides, you have probably heard people talk about the Saturn rocket Easter egg while queuing for a CoD BO7 Bot Lobby or watching clips online. It is not one of those easy "press a few buttons and get a reward" quests either. This one actually tests your aim and your patience. The game ties it straight into the whole "Ashes of the Dead" story, but when you are in the match it just feels like a raw skill challenge that can easily tilt you if you are not ready for how strict it is.
Setting Up With The Lanterns
Before you even think about the rocket flying past Saturn, the map forces you through the Lanterns quest, and you cannot skip it. You run around the station hitting specific lanterns in order, and each one spits out a small ball of light that starts orbiting your character. You need five of these orbs, and they are not just some glowing cosmetic effect; they are literally the only ammo that can hurt the rocket. If you try shooting it with your normal guns, nothing happens and it just drifts away. Once you have all five orbs, you just have to survive and wait, because the rocket does not appear until the start of Round 16, sliding into view just off to the left of Saturn in the skybox, and it is tiny enough that a lot of players miss it the first time.
The Awkward Shot You Have To Learn
When the rocket finally shows up, things get tense fast. To fire one of the light orbs, you do not pull the trigger, you actually melee, which already feels a bit weird in the middle of a hectic round. The orb that launches out is painfully slow, more like a drifting balloon than a bullet, so forget any idea of clean hit-scan shots. Because that rocket is moving at a steady pace across the sky and your orb crawls through the air, you have to lead the shot by a huge amount. You are basically guessing where that rocket will be a couple seconds later, while zombies bump into you and break your line of sight. Most players whiff the first few tries, then start marking rough spots on the skybox in their head, like "aim just above that star cluster" or "half a screen ahead of the nose of the rocket," and it slowly turns into muscle memory.
Why Missing Hurts So Much
The most brutal part is how heavily the game punishes failure. You only get those five orbs from the Lanterns, and if you waste every single one without landing a hit, that is it for that cycle. The rocket does not loop back a minute later; you are forced to survive until around Round 24 for the next pass. In high-round Zombies that is not a small ask, especially if your setup is not perfect yet. The pressure gets worse when you realise every miss is eight more rounds of work. A lot of players back out and restart the match if they blow all five, just because the time investment feels too steep to justify another attempt that late.
Why It Is Worth The Stress
If you do land that shot though, the payoff feels great. The rocket pops in a bright explosion, the whole sky flares up for a second, and then you get that clean Ray Gun drop at your feet. Having a guaranteed wonder weapon around Round 16 changes the whole flow of the run, because you are no longer stuck dumping points into the box and praying for good luck. You just do the Lanterns, hit the shot, grab your Ray Gun, and focus your points on perks and upgrades instead of slot machine spins. For a lot of players who like planning their runs or stacking other map challenges on top, it makes Astra Malorum feel way more controllable, a bit like how you can plan your loadouts or even buy game currency or items in RSVSR instead of hoping the game gives you what you want.
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