A full intel drop on what’s coming in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone Season 5 has just arrived, and it’s certainly… eccentric. Both the premium multiplayer game and the free-to-play battle royale are going to enjoy a healthy dose of new content as we gear up for Black Ops 6, with new maps, modes, weapons, and a WWE crossover.
Just like the Earth orbiting the Sun, the annual cycle of a Call of Duty game is fairly predictable at this point. A new FPS game arrives that attempts to tell powerful, high-stakes stories, with a cast of new and returning characters, and everything roughly aligns with the series’ vibes of military conflict, conspiracy, and action movie moments. But as soon as the first drop of seasonal content hits, any illusion that CoD is still a serious milsim evaporates. Over time the amount of wild map and mode ideas, crossovers with other unrelated IP, and bizarre cosmetics increases until you reach the pinnacle of unhinged Call of Duty content – Season 5. Like clockwork, we’re at that point again for Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone.
For the record, I’m not totally against this arc – nowadays, CoD often feels at its best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. While I miss the good ol’ times, observing CoD’s yearly descent into madness is often just as entertaining. So, what’s on the cards when the MW3 and Warzone Season 5 release date arrives on Wednesday, July 24?
For a start, there’s a big crossover with WWE in Season 5, which sees a trio of wrestling stars join the multiplayer game as operators: Rhea Ripley is in the battle pass, while Cody Rhodes and Rey Mysterio are purchasable from the store. Later on in the season, a WWE SummerSlam event will also introduce a new mode called Slam Deathmatch, which sees you pulling off WWE moves as finishers to confirm kills on downed opponents.
Then there are some new cel-shaded maps, which I have to admit actually look pretty cool. One of the brand-new maps for Season 5, Yard, is cel-shaded as standard, while three existing small-scale maps get variants in this art style: Toonoxide (Rust), Ink House (Stash House), and Celship (Shipment). Task Force 141 also gets a Borderlands makeover, as cel-shaded skins for Captain Price, Ghost, Soap, and Gaz are all available in a store bundle.
As we previously covered, all you Warzone enjoyers are going to be getting hit square in the face with a nostalgia punch, as the Superstore POI from Verdansk is being dropped into the battle royale game‘s Urzikstan map. There’ll also be a dedicated Superstore Resurgence mode that will feature 28 players battling it out over this single location.
There’s also the conclusion to MW3 Zombies’ storyline as we look forward to a (hopefully better) new Zombies experience from the masters at Treyarch in Black Ops 6. However, all the final story missions and the new Dark Aether rift are not arriving until the middle of Season 5, so you won’t be diving into that straight away.
And of course, there’s new cosmetics, such as… whatever the hell all these things are. I guess if you’re a big fan of fish, or sock puppets, you’ll be thrilled by this season’s store.
To see what else is new, you can find a primer on all of the content coming to MW3 and Warzone Season right here.
Unsurprisingly, it’s yet another bumper seasonal update – the amount of content Call of Duty delivers to its players over the course of a year continues to be very impressive. Sure, it’s often not the kind of thing CoD veterans like myself want to see, but there’s no denying that this is what keeps the broader audience invested in both MW3 and Warzone year-round.
Be sure to swot up on the best Warzone loadouts you can currently use in the game, and also make sure you’re aware of when the Black Ops 6 beta dates are locked in for so that you can try the upcoming PC game out before you commit to buying it.
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