It’s odd to think about how intertwined the once very secular Call of Duty gameplay modes have become. In 2008’s Call of Duty: World At War, a simple Easter egg introducing a fan-favorite zombies weapon into a campaign mission sent fans into a frenzy. Now, however, the experiences bleed into each other so significantly that it can be difficult for uninformed onlookers to tell them apart. With that in mind, recent discoveries in Activision’s battle royale offering Call of Duty: Warzone seem to suggest that zombies may be playing a huge part in the upcoming second season of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War.
A recent Warzone update has introduced a trial machine seen in Cold War’s Die Maschine and Firebase Z zombies maps to a hospital in Warzone's Verdansk, and a note affixed to the side of the contraption reads “prove yourself, to the victor go the spoils.” At the moment, it doesn’t seem to impact gameplay in any meaningful way, though some speculate that, once Cold War’s second season drops on February 24, it may be a part of a mechanic previously seen in Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode whereby players could activate a zombie-slaying trial in the hopes of earning some high-level loot.
Obviously, players familiar with Call of Duty’s take on the battle royale formula should know that this is far from the first time zombies have been introduced to the mix; Black Ops 4’s first Blackout map featured several locations originally found in the zombies mode, and a second map was set entirely on a zombie-ravaged version of Alcatraz Island.
What’s more, this won’t even be the first time that players will get a chance to see the walking dead roaming Warzone’s Verdansk, as a mid-October Modern Warfare update titled The Haunting of Verdansk introduced all sorts of wild Halloween-themed fun to proceedings. Unfortunately, we don’t expect to see Jigsaw from the Saw horror franchise make a return any time soon.
Fortunately, we won’t have to wait all that long to experience whatever Treyarch and Activision have cooked up for Call of Duty players; as previously mentioned, the next season of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is set to drop on the 24th of this month, and we would suspect that the new changes slated for Warzone will be introduced either on that date or very soon after.