Call of Duty: Warzone is getting a major facelift in Cold War Season 1

Call of Duty is about to make a bit of history. On December 16, Call of Duty: Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone are joining into one mega military Voltron. Everything from player ranks, weapon progression, battle passes, and weapons themselves will be completely shared across the two games. To commemorate the occasion, Warzone is getting a ton of additional weapons and a new (ugly) coat of paint.

Activision gave a sneak preview of the Warzone/Cold War integration in a new blog post. From what I can tell from screenshots, the changes are mostly cosmetic, at least until you get to the career section. There, you'll quickly notice that Warzone's old ranking system (which was shared with Modern Warfare 2019) is completely gone, now replaced with a separate military and prestige rank matching the one in Cold War.

As a reminder: this doesn't mean you'll lose any previously unlock gun camos, weapon levels, or attachments. Your existing loadouts will stay intact. All that's changing is how Warzone presents ranks going forward. Prestige ranks will now reset seasonally to give players a new grind every few months.

We also have our first look at the Cold War guns that are coming to Warzone in Season 1. Feast your eyes on the AK-47.

If you're yelling at the screen that there's already an AK-47 in Warzone, you'd be right! This is one of the many overlapping weapons, like the MP5 and M4, that already exist in both games. All versions will cohabitate in Warzone as separate guns. That's 29 new weapons in all, including:

• 5 Assault Rifles
• 5 Submachine Guns
• 4 Marksman (Tactical) Rifles
• 3 Light Machine Guns
• 3 Sniper Rifles
• 3 Pistols
• 2 Shotguns
• 3 Launchers (including the Special Launcher)
• 1 Melee Weapon

Visually, the AK-47 above is identical to the older wood-finished model in Cold War, but it remains to be seen if it will sound or feel like it does in that game. Considering many of Treyarch's weapons sound tinny and unimpressive, I'll probably stick to Infinity Ward's interpretations.

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Guns aren't the only area where Cold War's footprint can be seen. As you've probably noticed, the entire aesthetic of Warzone's menus are changing from the modern spec-ops vibe to Cold War's clinical black/white/tan buttons that look like they're sealed in a manilla envelope. And wow, it's kind of ugly. Warzone's menus had lots of color and satisfying beeps and boops. Cold War's entire vibe is depressing and way overuses the "redacted text" trick that started in the original Black Ops.

The full blog post goes into greater detail on a few menus and shows how the operator select screen will look in Warzone. With over 50 now available between the two games, you'll have to toggle which pool of operators you're looking at.