Originally scheduled for December 10, the integration of Warzone into Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War will now take place on December 16, kicking off Season 1 of this year’s title in earnest and featuring an “unprecedented” drop of free content to the game(s).
Treyarch and Activision have confirmed that the update will bring a whole new Warzone map to drop into, as well as a new mode. Additional details weren’t exactly forthcoming about either. The available arsenal in Warzone is set to expand with Black Ops Cold War’s weapons getting added to loadout options (and random pickups around the map). They also say a “new Gulag experience” is coming, but again, details are thin right now. And yes, Warzone is still free-to-play for everyone.
On the Black Ops Cold War side of things, prepare for a bunch of new maps (including both small and a large Fireteam map), “new and fan-favorite” modes, the addition of 2v2 Gunfight, and the return of a fan-favorite map from Black Ops II, Raid. That’s all alongside new weapons, new Zombies modes, Seasonal Challenges, and the cross-title (across Modern Warfare, Warzone, and Black Ops Cold War) progression system that has 1000 prestige levels for the most hardcode of players to earn, no matter where they play.
Overall, they are calling this the “biggest Season One launch week ever seen” and “an unprecedented amount of free content.” That massive size and scope of it all is part of the reason for the delay to December 16th, allowing the teams to get everything prepared and ready for launch.
As a courtesy due to the delay, Treyarch will be running Double XP and Double Weapon XP from December 12th through the launch of Season 1 on the 16th. You’ll also be able to get two free bundles ahead of the new season, starting on December 8th, with availability ending 11PM PT on December 15. Details on what the bundles include are below:
“Field Research” Bundle
- 1 Epic Operator Skin (Park)
- 1 Epic SMG Weapon Blueprint
- 1 Epic Reticle
- 1 Epic Calling Card
- 1 Rare Weapon Charm
“Certified” Bundle
- 1 Epic Operator Skin (Garcia)
- 1 Rare Assault Rifle Weapon Blueprint
- 1 Epic Reticle
- 1 Epic Weapon Charm
A series of updates are set to occur across both Black Ops Cold War and Warzone over the next couple of weeks leading up to Season 1, sure to burn up any ISP data caps you might have in place. Treyarch isn’t detailing the size or content of these updates yet, but they are set to prepare both the Black Ops Cold War and Warzone clients for full integration and the launch of the new season and content.
Details about bringing Warzone natively to PS5 are unclear right now, but it seems like this update should integrate the free-to-play game into the PS5 client of Black Ops Cold War. Currently, the only way to play Warzone on PS5 is to use the PS4 client for Modern Warfare/Warzone via backwards compatibility.
[Source: Activision]
