Been seeing people call the Agarthan Device “just another relic grind,” and nah, that's straight copium. I tested it across a few Totenreich Cursed Mode runs after 11/2025 update chatter, and this thing is way more annoying than the Wicked label makes it sound. It's not even the combat first. It's the setup. Half my prep was making sure I didn't bring some goofy augment combo that bricks the triggers, and for some extra runs I ended up finding what I needed through CoD BO7 Bot Lobby stuff just so I could focus on the actual steps instead of wasting another night on failed starts. If you haven't cleared the main Totenreich quest already, don't even queue for this thinking you'll wing it.

Why most guides undersell it

Thing is, people keep describing it like a clean checklist. It isn't. You need Cursed Mode at Tier II or higher, and in my runs Richtofen had to be the active character or key prompts just never showed. I know everyone's been running their comfy endgame loadouts since the current patch, but some augments seem to flat-out block progress. I can't name every bad combo yet, so take that with a grain of salt, but I swapped builds twice and got different trigger behavior in the same area. That's already a red flag. And if you're chasing Tier III account upgrades, you pretty much have to deal with it because the relic feeds directly into that late-game progression loop.

The step that ate my rounds

The worst part for me was Tyr's Head. Not because it's hard, but because it's pure “do another lap and pray” energy. You need the helmet, the Mister Peeks item, and the radio path started, and those hidden rooms don't pop every time. You go in, you come out, maybe you get sent back to the main map, maybe you hit a secret room. That's not skill. That's RNG wasting armor plates and ammo while rounds keep scaling. I saw a lot of people saying the item hunt is fast once you know the route. Maybe if the game likes you. Mine didn't.

The radio puzzle is the real filter

Look, the handheld radio chain is where most squads are gonna fold. First you need an ARC-XD, then you drive it into the Core Foundry vent, then you're suddenly doing Group 935 lab nonsense with number-to-letter decoding and jar matching for a purple serum. I actually like puzzle steps in Zombies, but this one is kinda cracked because it's shoved into a live round with pressure on you the whole time. And I'm still not 100% sure what the failure state is if your ARC-XD gets blown up early. I had one run where I could retry after cooldown, and another where it felt locked until the round flipped. Could be bugged, could be me missing something.

My take after finally getting it

Once you place the three items on the Von List throne setup during Richtofen's side quest and hear the Mister Peeks cue, the Dry Dock portal trial is where the game finally stops pretending. Damage feels restricted hard in there, but I couldn't pin down if it's a flat weapon penalty or certain damage types getting nerfed. Explosives felt mid. Elemental stuff felt weird too. Still, if you're serious about Cursed Mode efficiency, you want this relic. If you're not, don't force it. Ngl, for some prep help between runs I've used RSVSR for basic BO7 stuff so I could spend more time testing routes than grinding filler, and I'd rather do that than lose two hours to hidden conditions nobody documents right. Curious what everyone else thinks.