Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Season Two is about to get underway, and a major new large-scale Zombies mode is coming with the seasonal shift. Announced last week when Treyarch revealed Season Two, they’ve now provided additional details about Outbreak, as well as an action-packed trailer to show what players can expect in the new mode. Season Two will also launch a free play week for Outbreak and Black Ops Cold War’s multiplayer, letting players have full access to both from February 25th – March 4th.
Check out the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Outbreak trailer below:
Spread across locales in the Ural Mountains (that players may be familiar with as Fireteam-based multiplayer maps), the appropriately named Outbreak sees Requiem engaging with the biggest outbreak yet. Far from the previous confined Zombies maps, Outbreak brings Zombies to a more open-world experience, with new threats, objectives, and rewards.
Like other Zombies maps, Outbreak will group up to four players together, and these teams of agents will encounter a variety of different difficult objectives. Much less linear than the likes of Die Maschine and Firebase Z, players can choose how they approach each objective, which can range from defending sites from the hordes to attacking high-value targets.
Players will encounter a number of familiar elements found in other Zombies maps, but their placement in the larger maps will offer entirely new ways to utilize these tools, as well as shift how players need to think about tackling each situation. The one consistent is that if you fail an objective, you are done. How you choose to complete the objective is up to you. These objectives can be any of the following:
- Defend- As its name implies, this one will have you defending a machine that is analyzing and uploading infected genetic code so that Requiem can learn more about the Dark Aether and its effects.
- Escort- Players accompany a rover looking for dimensional portals—much like Defend, only this one’s on the move.
- Retrieve- Aetherium harvesters are pulling Aetherium out of the atmosphere and storing it in containers. You’ll need to grab a container and take it to an extraction rocket, but you won’t be able to wield weapons while you do. Best have a good team for this one.
- Eliminate- Take out the high value target, along with massive waves of infected enemies protecting them.
- Holdout- Players will teleport into the Aether for a more traditional small-scale Zombies experience to survive and hold off waves of enemies while they wait for explosives to destroy an unstable Aether crystal.
- And more…- Treyarch promises that Outbreak will continue to grow with additional investigations and objectives in the future.
Once you’ve completed an objective, you’ll head to a beacon that will allow you to get upgrades like Pack-a-Punch for your weapons, a Wunderfizz vending machine for perks, as well as a crafting table and arsenal station (all elements that should be familiar to Zombies players). Now the critical choice: Exfil and gain additional rewards, or push through a portal to another zone for another more difficult objective?
Two new types of Aethrium Crystals are being added as rewards—Refined Aetherium Crystals for Tier IV upgrades and Flawless Aetherium Crystals for Tier V upgrades—but Treyarch isn’t quite ready to talk about how the meta is set to shift with the new upgrade Tiers just yet. Expect more intel on that later this week. They promise that earning the new Crystal types “won’t be easy” and that they have a chance to drop as rewards in the two existing Zombies maps as well.
Along with the new mode drop, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is getting a full free-play week for both Outbreak and Multiplayer so curious players can jump in and check out what’s new with Season Two entirely for free. The free week lasts from Season Two’s launch on February 25th at 10 am PT until March 4th at 10 am PT. While the free week doesn’t include the two initial Zombies maps, it will include the Onslaught mode exclusively for PlayStation players on PS4 and PS5. The weekend (February 26th – March 1) will also feature Double XP and Double Weapon XP to kickstart the new season.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Season Two launches free for all players on February 25th.
[Source: Activision 1, 2]
