Call of Duty is about to get its biggest update since the release of Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 last year. Activision spilled the whole beans on next week’s Season 3 update in a voluminous blog post (opens in new tab) detailing new maps, guns, modes, and features coming to the 6v6 and battle royale corners of CoD.
That’s “maps” plural for traditional multiplayer—a total of three 6v6 maps and two larger “battle maps” adapted from the Warzone map, which is a nice change of pace from what has been a somewhat slow start to Modern Warfare 2’s post-launch support (opens in new tab).
Both halves of the community seem pretty well served this time around, which makes me think it could be the first CoD update in a while that makes everyone happy (or at least less angry than usual). Here are the most pertinent details from the Season 3 update coming April 12:
Modern Warfare 2
- 5 new guns, including the famed Intervention sniper rifle (opens in new tab) from Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
- 3 new 6v6 maps (two at launch and one mid-season)
- 2 battle maps
- 3 2v2 Gunfight maps
- Co-op raid episode 3
Battle royale
- 5 new guns (same as MW2)
- 2 new modes, including Plunder and ranked
- New gulag map
- Tempered plate vests
- Redeploy drones
- UAV towers
DMZ
- Workbenches
- Barter system
- Character slots
- New faction missions
There’s also a new battle pass, of course, but Activison is trying something a bit different this time: what if there was a version of the battle pass that was triple the price and came with extra super premium exclusive skins? Called Blackcell, this new $30 version of the battle pass includes the Blackcell operator, a black/gold suit and mask combo that has become an increasingly popular shooter aesthetic in recent years.
The bundle claims to have a roughly $70 value, but better to think of it as a regular $20 cosmetic bundle that also comes with the premium battle pass. It’s not a bad deal if you’re super into the John Wick/edgelord aesthetic and already plan on getting the pass. Hilarious that a few digital cosmetics half the price of a new videogame can be considered a good deal in 2023, but that’s where we’re at.
Interestingly, Season 3 will also introduce official Discord integration to MW2 and Warzone 2 on PC. It’s unclear exactly what that will entail, but my prediction for this feature is a simple in-game menu that lets me access my Discord servers so I don’t have to alt-tab or rely on hotkeys. More info on this will be coming in next week’s patch notes.
I hope Call of Duty steers clear of how 2017’s Lawbreakers (RIP) used Discord. That game partnered with the chat app as its official voice chat solution, meaning it would constantly kick me out of the server I was already in to join the match voice chat. It wasn’t great.