Today sees the launch of 'Season Four reloaded' in both Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone, and it brings a boatload of new content, modes and weapons across the games. There's a new Zombies experience Mauer Der Toten, a new objective mode in Warzone, a classic map returning and new modes in Blops multiplayer, and more.
Maur Der Toten is a round-based Zombies map which, if you're keeping up with the lore, is set after the events of Operation Excision in Outbreak. Your squad's working for Colonel Kravchenko in return for their freedom, and it's set in a war-racked Berlin that's now been invaded by zombies.
The map also includes a robot companion, Klaus, who shoots zombies once activated, ziplines, a new 'wonder weapon' in four flavours, the usual clutch of secrets, and the return of the Mule Kick perk, which lets players carry more weapons.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Season 2 will let players battle on boats and bullet-trains, with the Terminator entering the fray 'shortly after launch'
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Season 3 has been delayed, as the devs say they're 'taking the time to deliver a great experience' for what will be a 'big moment' for Call of Duty
Outside of the undead, Blops Cold War multiplayer will see the return of Rush from Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, a 6vs6 map set on a paintball course. Later in the season, a new Paintball Moshpit mode will introduce paintball visual effects and impact sounds across its own playlist. Today's update also adds Capture the Flag mode, something we're all familiar with though the claim that its "roots stem from the very first Call of Duty multiplayer experience" somewhat raised my eyebrows.
There's also a whole bunch of cosmetic and shop stuff, detailed in full here.
Season Four also grants players across both games a new weapon for close-quarters engagements, with another to come. It's launched with the OTs 9 SMG, described thus: "Sacred among CQB Operators for its ability to deal solid damage at a high fire-rate, the formerly-classified OTs 9 can be compared to the Bullfrog in terms of damage and fire rate (slightly more power and over 100 RPM more in fire rate), but with a lesser magazine capacity."
Later in the season it's adding a massive mace as an earnable melee weapon, because why not, and the operator Weaver (who has to be bought).
For its part Warzone gets a new objective mode Payload, which any Overwatch or TF2 player will be familiar with. The COD take sees two teams of 20 players face-off, with the attacking side trying to escort vehicles across checkpoints, while the defenders try to stop it. There is a slight tweak here in that the defending team can buy and build obstacles that will stall the trains on the tracks until destroyed.
A new killstreak is added, the Sentry Gun, which has previously been seen in the series and is indeed also in Black Ops—Cold War, which automatically shoots opposing players for around a minute before exploding. This will be found as a legendary drop within red door room supply boxes.
There's also going to be a time-limited 'Blueprint Blitz' event, whereby contraband contracts spawn after you complete two regular contracts. The contraband contracts award permanent weapon blueprints if they can be extracted, as well as a bunch of cash in the current match. The rewards will include previous seasonal guns.
Season Four Reloaded is now live, and on PC the Black Ops—Cold War patch is 13GB without HD textures or 21.2GB with (though you'll need "63.2-111.5 GB of additional space on the hard drive for the copying process; this is only temporary space that is reclaimed upon completion of the patch installation." The Warzone patch is 9.2GB or 10.4GB if you also have Modern Warfare installed.
