Call of Duty's Epic FREE DLC: Unveiled!

Last week was the Game Awards, which is essentially the Oscar’s of video games, except they also do a bunch of announcements and trailer releases. Well, this time around we got a bunch of exciting announcements including a new Fall Guy’s season trailer, several new Star Wars and Marvel shows and most importantly a look at Black Ops Cold War’s first season of DLC. The trailer shown at the game awards displayed a bunch of new content including a new Warzone map, some new multiplayer maps and a handful of new weapons and killstreaks. As far as content goes, this is probably the largest DLC drop of any Call of Duty to date. And the best part is: it’s all completely FREE. Here is a list of all the new features coming with Black Ops Cold War season 1:

The new map ‘Rebirth Island’ is…… you guessed it ANOTHER island — at this point, it’s pretty much the standard with any Battle Royale. This map is said to draw heavy inspiration from the BO4 Blackout map on ‘Alcatraz Island’. Modern Warfare’s Verdansk will evidently remain the larger map between the two. But what Rebirth Island lacks in scale it makes up for in intricacy and verticality. Interiors are heavily explorable and interconnected. Underground tunnels link every corner of the map and help bring it all together seamlessly. Don’t stress thinking that you would need to have purchased Black Ops Cold War to play this map. It should be playable straight from the Warzone menu.

New Weapons to Black Ops Cold War

There will be 3 new weapons coming out with the season 1 battle pass and those are: the MAC 10 (SMG), the Groza (AR) and the Streetsweeper (shotgun). The MAC 10 will be released at launch and is said to feature “an impressive fully automatic fire rate […] tempered by a slight vertical recoil, and moderate damage” according to the game’s developers. Speaking on the Gorza, the devs detailed that it is very much a classic assault rifle with “excellent handling speeds and solid damage, as well as a fast fire rate and impressive […] range”. On the flip side, the Streetsweeper is claimed to be designed to “clear out rooms of multiple foes” as it has the “fastest fire rate in its class and a larger ammo pool than its brethren”. However, the developers do warn players about the potential shortcomings of this gun, stating that they should expect “slightly reduced damage”. Time will have to tell how well these new weapons fit into the established Cold War meta, but the future definitely looks bright for at least one of these guns.

New Operators Coming to Black Ops Cold War

Not much to talk about here. The 3 new operators are Zeyna, Stitch and Bulldozer. I won’t go too much in-depth on their characters and backstories simply because these are basically just skins and they have no impact on gameplay. 

New 2v2 Gunfight Maps

That’s right, 2v2 gunfight is back. After its immense success in Modern Warfare and its increasing popularity, Black Ops Cold War has now introduced the beloved game mode into the game. This mode will launch with 4 unique maps designed specifically for the close-quarter action of 2v2. The first map is called Game Show and as the title would suggest, the map takes place in the set of an old abandoned Game Show. The second map ‘KGB’ takes place inside the KGB headquarters—again, the title probably gave that one away. If you’ve played through the campaign, you should be familiar with these surrounding since one of the missions takes place inside this same building. The remaining 2 maps are a bit more obscure and less. From the mall snippets of gameplay in the trailer, you can make out that U-BHAN is in an abandoned subway station and ICBM takes place inside a nuclear missile silo. 

More Multiplayer Maps

The Pines—The Pines is a 6v6 map located in and around an empty New Jersey mall. With this game taking place in the 80s, this map is no doubt a reference to the classic hit film of the 80s: Back to the Future. If you have ever seen the movie, you would remember the Twin Pines Mall. This is the place where Marty and the Doctor first realise that the time machine works and where Marty begins his adventure by escaping with the Delorean into the year 1955. Call of Duty’s version of this classic mall is called “The Pines” and it bears a striking resemblance to the mall in Back to the Future. Considering this is Treyarch, and that this was obviously intentional, I would fully expect to see more references to this classic film series scattered throughout the map.

Raid—Raid is a luxurious residential complex located in the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California. This map will be very familiar to you if you have ever played Black Ops 2. The map is a full-on carbon copy of its beloved original counterpart of the same name. The map’s layout is expected to remain unchanged, with a simple update in textures and overall graphical fidelity being the only real differentiator between the original map and the Cold War map.

Sanatorium—Located in the Russian Ural Plains is a “Soviet experimental health retreat—the focus of a clandestine investigation by NATO forces in September 1984”. Not much is known about this map past Treyarch’s rather bland description. It is supposedly going to be a map for Cold War’s newest mode, Fireteam Dirty Bomb. Fireteam maps are much larger than regular maps, and this is one should be no different with the landscape varying from lakes and forests to islands and tall modern structures.

Nuketown 84 Holiday—This is not a new map but simply a holiday skin for Cold War’s Nuketown 84. Nothing about the layout of the map will change, however, it will be set during the night and the houses will be decorated with tons of bright Christmas lights. It remains to be seen whether this map will feature a brand new Christmas themed Easter-egg or not. For a more detailed look at how the Nuketown map has changed over the years check out our other article on the history of Nuketown.

New Multiplayer Modes

There will be 2 new multiplayer modes coming with the release of season 1. The first is Prop Hunt, which is a returning fan-favourite from the good old days of Black Ops 3. In this mode, two teams alternate between being the props and the hunters. As a prop, you disguise yourself as an everyday item scattered around the map. The aim is to go undetected for the entire duration of the round. If you succeed, you win the game. On the flip side, as a hunter, your job is to find and eliminate all the player-controlled ‘fake’ props that are around the map.

The second multiplayer mode is a new 6v6 mode called dropkick. In this mode, two teams fight for control of a special and extremely important nuclear briefcase. The round begins which each team running to the location of the briefcase and attempting to pick up. Similar to VIP escort, if you pick up the briefcase, you will automatically be equipped with a special pistol and your teammates will have to protect you. If you die while your team is in possession of the briefcase, you will not respawn until the carrier is dead. The longer your team controls the briefcase, the more points you rack up—with the aim being to reach 200 points before the opposition. Succeed, and you will gain access to the nuclear codes hidden inside the briefcase and end the match by calling down your very own nuke.

Overall, it’s obvious that Call of Duty is making strides in the right direction with this massive new and FREE DLC release. The content coming out with this release is both wholly original, with a disguised hint of powerful nostalgia. Whether you’re a longstanding aficionado of the franchise or you’re just jumping into the game for the first time, it’s undoubtedly a great time to be Call of Duty fan.