Although needlers and chainsaw guns were all the rage a short decade ago, these days gamers can't get enough old school bow and arrow. The classic weapon's comeback may have something to do with The Walking Dead's Daryl Dixon or the CW's popular Green Arrow makeover; but regardless of the reason, the weapon is back in a big way. The trend has spilled over into the world of video games in the last few years and it became the weapon of choice in Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, and Crysis 3. Although the bow and arrow dealt some serious damage in those games, the destruction capabilities of Battlefield 4's Phantom Bow definitely wins the prize.

Battlefield 4's latest DLC, Final Stand, released on November 18th for Battlefield Premium members and thanks to the overpowered weapon, the game is generating some unexpected hype. Battlefield 4 had a hard time recovering from a rocky launch and the first four DLC packs came and went relatively unnoticed,  but players wreaking havoc in private matches with the Phantom Bow has helped put the first-person shooter back on the radar and add more hype to the game's final DLC pack. Thanks to the Battlefield community, we now have a crash course on how a player (with the help of other dedicated players) can get their hands on the compound bow.

In the video above, YouTuber jackfrags explains how to access the secret area that players need to visit to pick up the Phantom Bow. Like all DLC weapons in BF, players will need to complete assignments (in this case, three) to unlock the bow. This one is a little tougher than usual, but thankfully, the early access players have already followed the clues and cracked the case. Here are the CliffsNotes...

Battlefield 4 Phantom Bow

Use the Elevator in Hangar 21 - This is more complicated than it sounds... Finding the elevator in Hangar 21 is easy enough, but players will need a team of four to get it working. First, each member of your team will need to be wearing one of the new dog tags released in the DLC. Each player must be wearing a different tag, so there can't be any repeats. Each player also needs to have the secondary Phantom Skull dog tag, as well as the Phantom Soldier and Phantom Weapon Camos equipped. Good luck assembling all of that...

Once you and your team arrive at the elevator rocking all the appropriate flare (on a ranked server), the elevator should be operational.

Unlock the Phantom Facility - Once players arrive at the Phantom Facility, which contains the Phantom Bow and a number of other secrets, they will need to enter a password on the keypad to unlock the room. The Battlefield community assembled on Reddit over the weekend and cracked the code together. Once riding in the elevator, any of the players can enter 1290 429 397648 970 to remove the room's force field.

Once the force field is deactivated, the whole party can enter the room and start admiring the treasures. In addition to the Phantom Bow, the room also contains orders for the Phantom Operative Assignment. It seems highly likely that the room contains other secrets as well and we have no doubt that the Battlefield community will uncover them shortly.

YouTuber Westie has already begun uncovering some of the other secrets in Final Stand, including an icicle knife and a mini walker. Here is a compilation of some of the secrets he's already stumbled across...

We'll be interested to see if the Phantom Bow craze actually brings a lot of players back to BF4 or if the game is too far passed its prime. There are certainly plenty of other new-gen first-person shooters crowing that market, so BF4 has plenty of competition.

Do you plan to pick up the last Battlefield 4 DLC pack so that you can try out the Phantom Bow or have you moved on to newer games? Let us know in the comments.

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Battlefield 4 is available on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Follow Denny on Twitter @The_DFC.

Source: YouTube, Reddit