Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gets Drop Zone game mode and community playlists

Call of Duty's supply crates always remind me of Worms. In Team 17's turn based worm battles, crates would drop from the sky at a regular rate. Those who got to them first would claim the most destructive weapons, including air strikes. Modern Warfare's care packages are are similar. In the newly added game mode, Drop Zone, they will be even more important than ever.

IW creative strategist Robert Bowling posted about the new game mode on the Modern Warfare 3 forums . Drop Zone will have teams fighting to control a central point. As long as someone is holding it, care packages will drop every 15 seconds. "This is the only way to earn air support in this mode," writes Bowling. "All other pointstreaks are disabled. You'll earn 20 points per team member, for every second they're in the drop zone plus 20 XP individually for your time spent in the zone."

The update will also add Community Playlists. Popular custom and private modes will be added here to let players gain ranks on some of their favourite map set-ups. Bowling also talks about some tweaks to Hardcore mode. "we'll be converting all Hardcore modes to Ricochet variant as a response to team killing. This means, any friendly fire, is applied to the attacker, rather than the victim. So choose your shots wisely and any attempt to team kill will simply kill yourself." The update should apply today, and will be added for free.