Have you been loving Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War as much as I have? Or are you more of a battle royale-dominating Call of Duty: Warzone type? Whatever your preferred Call of Duty poison these days, there's no denying the FPS franchise's staying power, bravado, and sheer depth of content. And now, with new details about its upcoming Season Two here, and the update ready to download on all consoles and PCs between February 23-25, we'll be drowning in a whole new mess of content.
To begin, four new operators are now available to play as. We've got Kapano “Naga” Vang, a vicious warlord-turned-Perseus-agent with a wild temper and a wilder mask. Samantha Maxis, a returning Zombies character whom you can now play in regular multiplayer and Warzone too. Terrell Wolf, who grew up hunting gators in Louisiana and now hunts your foes with a sniper rifle. And Karla Rivas, a Nicaraguan guerilla fighter determined to rid her community of drug cartel influence. You can give these new fighters any loadout you want, and loadouts now include six new weapons: a FARA 83 assault rifle, an LC10 submachine gun, a damn machete, a damn E-Tool (think a shovel you can fold and also kill people with), a damn crossbow, and a ZRG 20mm sniper rifle that's deadly from wildly long ranges.
These characters and weapons will all culminate in a brand new, narrative-driven Zombies mode, called, appropriately, Outbreak. Here's a brief story synopsis on this new mode:
"As Requiem continues to fall behind in the arms race against Omega Group, various regions in the Ural Mountains have recently become Dark Aether outbreak sites. With new opportunities to research the Dark Aether and advance Requiem’s agenda, it’s up to you and three fellow agents to complete the deadly experiments that few have survived."
Outbreak will feature a litany of new objectives, enemies, rewards, technology, dimensional portals, and much more. Chief among these updates comes Frenzied Guard, a new field update that can turn one operator into a zombie-attracting bait, where only their armor takes damage — the perfect opportunity to give every other operator the chance to make big moves. Other updates include the Shatter Blast Ammo Mod, which gives every bullet an explosive punch, and two new skills tiers for maximum efficacy as a zombie combatant.
In regular Black Ops Cold War multiplayer (my favorite way to play), we've got four new maps: Apocalypse, a "Lao jungle cartel base in the heart of the Golden Triangle"; Golova, a Russian village that hides an underground secret; Mansion, which was originally seen in the game's single-player campaign; and Miami Strike, which simply sounds badass. We've also got two new multiplayer modes and one existing multiplayer modification. In Gun Game, you fight opponents free-for-all, moving forward one weapon class at a time (but if you get killed, you move one weapon class back). In Stockpile, you kill opponents, grab their dog tags, and deposit them in your team's, well, stockpile. And in the preexisting Hardpoint, a new version allows up to 10 teams (!) to battle for domination in spots across the map. These new maps and modes are exacerbated by a new scorestreak (a giant machine gun called Death Machine), two new vehicles (a very normal looking sedan and a light truck), a bunch of Season Challenges, and new Prestige Levels.
As for you battle royalers in Warzone? You'll get all the aforementioned operators and weapons, plus some new points of interest, including a missing cargo tanker at sea, and a mysterious underground rumbling in Verdansk.
Warzone also gets two new game modes. In Exfiltration, an exit-ready radio crackles to life somewhere on the map. Whoever can grab this radio and hang on to it for enough time wins the game for their team — so long as other players don't try and destroy them and grab it first. And in the absolutely bonkers-titled Rebirth Island Resurgence Extreme, up to 90 players (!!) are on the same map, with respawns only coming if team's Rebirth Countdowns hit zero. Phew! That is a ton of ways to play Call of Duty!
The Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War/Warzone Season Two update will roll through consoles and PCs between February 23 and February 25. Check out the gameplay trailer below.