Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Season 1 went live at midnight Eastern time on 6 November. That’s 9pm Pacific on 5 November, 4am UTC, and 3pm AEDT for Australian players. It arrives two weeks after the game’s 23 October launch, and it’s a big one. It’s a free update that adds three multiplayer maps, two returning modes, a new DMZ location, two new weapons through the first Battle Pass, and the moment Warzone formally moves over to Modern Warfare 4, with two new maps set on the Korean Peninsula.
Here’s everything in the update, what’s being held back for the mid-season Reloaded drop, and what Warzone players need to know before they jump in.
Season 1 multiplayer maps
Activision’s Season 1 overview on the PlayStation Blog confirms three 6v6 maps at launch.
| Map | Size | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Backstab | Medium, 6v6 | New war-torn town with abandoned tanks, heavy weather and a deserted house stacked with drone ordnance |
| Canyon | Medium, 6v6 | New map boxed in by rock walls, with a river route near the Convoy Ambush and a winding Cliff Path |
| Shoot House | Medium, 6v6 | The reimagined classic, now set in snowy North Korea |
Backstab is the one long-time fans should look at closely. Dot Esports reports that its layout takes inspiration from Burgundy, the French village map from 2005’s Call of Duty 2, so expect tight streets and window-to-window gunfights rather than open sightlines. Shoot House needs no introduction for anyone who played Modern Warfare (2019): it’s the three-lane training compound that became the series’ unofficial home of camo grinding, and Infinity Ward has kept its familiar layout under a fresh coat of snow.
Modes: Grind and Drop Zone return
Two modes come back on day one. In Grind, eliminated players drop dog tags that you have to bank at fixed points to score, so a hot streak counts for nothing until you get the tags home. In Drop Zone, teams fight over a single objective that moves around the map, with killstreak packages airdropped onto it at intervals. Both reward aggressive, objective-focused play more than standard Team Deathmatch.
What’s coming at mid-season
Activision says Season 1 will have more than six multiplayer maps in total, with the rest arriving in the mid-season Season 1 Reloaded update. Two have been named so far:
- Ministry: fighting in and around an embassy during a diplomatic summit.
- Overflow: a factory and the farmland around it.
A new Counter Attack mode was also announced, in which each team tries to destroy the other’s communications station while defending its own. No date has been given for Reloaded, but Call of Duty’s mid-season updates have typically landed around four to six weeks after a season starts.
DMZ: the X01 Black Site
DMZ, the extraction mode that returned with Modern Warfare 4, gets its first new location: X01, a previously undiscovered weapons facility near Hajin that North Korean forces have seized. You reach it through an entry point on the Hajin map, and it brings new enemies, including new Commanders and Lieutenants, along with new orders.
X01 lands on top of a 2 November patch that had already changed how DMZ plays. UAV Towers now spawn in random places and there are 40% fewer of them, which makes it noticeably harder to track other squads. The same patch restored diving to its normal speed after a temporary slowdown to fix an exploit, and adjusted spawns on Shipment.
Warzone moves to Modern Warfare 4
Season 1 is also when Warzone becomes a Modern Warfare 4 game. The official Warzone roadmap confirms two new maps at launch.
| Map | Mode | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Hajin | Battle Royale | New, live now |
| Zodiac | Resurgence | New, live now |
| Verdansk | Battle Royale | Returning later in Season 1 |
| Rebirth Island | Resurgence | Returning later in Season 1 |
Hajin is the first Warzone map set on the Korean Peninsula. It spans North and South Korea across 13 major points of interest, from the towers and fortified roads of Hajin City to the open Imjin Farmland, with changing weather and a new Gulag, according to The Loadout. Zodiac is a compact Resurgence map built around a drone manufacturing headquarters in South Korea, with ten points of interest. Anyone who played the Modern Warfare 4 beta has already seen it.
One correction worth making clear: Verdansk and Rebirth Island are coming back, but not on day one. Both return later in the season, so the launch rotation is Hajin and Zodiac only.
The integration also brings all 33 of Modern Warfare 4’s launch weapons into Warzone, with older guns from Modern Warfare II through Black Ops 7 sitting in a Legacy tab. Player levels reset with the move, and new modes include Massive Resurgence, which puts 120 players on Hajin, and Loaded Resurgence, where you deploy with your own loadout. XboxAdvisor reports that the move also ends Warzone support on last-generation consoles, so PS4 and Xbox One players should check before they log in.
Warzone remains free to play, so you don’t need to own Modern Warfare 4 to try Hajin or Zodiac.
The Season 1 Battle Pass
The first Battle Pass has 100 tiers of operator skins, weapon blueprints and other cosmetics, and it’s where the season’s two new weapons, the Cronen Osprey and CSG-35, are unlocked. Reported pricing is 1,100 COD Points for the Battle Pass or 2,400 COD Points for the bundle, and progress is shared between Modern Warfare 4 and Warzone.
If you buy the pass late in the season, it reportedly catches you up with the rewards you’d have earned by day 50, so you won’t be starting from tier one.
New to Modern Warfare 4?
Our Modern Warfare 4 launch guide covers pre-load, early access and Game Pass, and all our Call of Duty coverage lives on the Call of Duty hub. Full patch notes are in Activision’s official Season 1 announcement.