It's new season week in the world of Call of Duty, and that means a barrage of updates from Activision about what's next for Black Ops – Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone. We'll learn more about Warzone's changes later this week, but for now, we at least know how much disk space Season 3 will take up, as outlined in a new Cold War Season 3 blog post. Activision also confirmed that Season 3 will launch on April 22 across both games.
Call of Duty update downloads have a reputation for being enormous, but after Season 2's gigantic midseason patch that shrank the overall size of Warzone, it looks like Season 3 will go a bit easier on us. Here are the update sizes across all platforms:
Warzone
- PC: 25.2GB
- PS5/PS4: 25.6GB
- Xbox Series X/S/One: 25.9GB
Cold War
- PC: 13.1GB
- PS5:12.3GB
- PS4: 8.1GB
- Xbox Series X/S: 11.6GB
- Xbox One: 8.3GB
The meat of the blog post is Cold War's Season 3 roadmap. The four new multiplayer maps, new scorestreak, and two more vehicles are standard fare at this point, but four interesting guns are on the way alongside a few fun surprises. In keeping with Cold War's fascination with classic Black Ops arcade modes, the crossbow/ballistic knife-themed Sticks and Stones mode is returning. Yes, that also means the ballistic knife is coming to Cold War/Warzone.
Here are the new Multiplayer maps coming to Cold War:
- Yamantau (6v6)
- Diesel (6v6/2v2/3v3)
- Standoff (6v6)
- Duga (Multi-Team, in-season)
New weapons are a big deal, too, especially considering they'll be arriving in Warzone at the same time. We're taking a step back to WWII with the PPSH-41, the classic square barrel SMG that I couldn't put down in World at War. Also interesting is the CARV.2, a boxy burst-fire assault rifle with a similar shape to Black Ops 1's G11 without the strange top-loaded magazines. The PPSH, K31, and Ballistic Knife are all coming in week one of Season 3, but the rest aren't coming until later (likely the midseason turnover).
Here's the full weapon list for Season 3:
Best Warzone loadout: The gear to choose
Best M4A1 Warzone loadout: Top all-purpose AR builds
Best MP7 Warzone loadout: Effective SMG setups
Best Grau Warzone loadout: Strong AR builds
Best M13 Warzone loadout: Attachments to choose
Best Kilo 101 Warzone loadout: Boost the punchy AR
- PPSH-41 (SMG)
- Swiss K31 (Sniper rifle)
- CARV.2 (Tactical Rifle)
- AMP63 (Pistol)
- Ballistic Knife (Melee)
- Baseball Bat (Melee)
Season 3 also adds four new operators, one of which is a 1984 version of Captain Price. Season 2's jungle-themed operators didn't do anything for me, so I'm excited to see the cold weather looks of Wraith and Knight. Wraith and Price are the only operators dropping with the launch of Season 3.
- Wraith (Launch)
- Knight (In-season)
- Captain Price
- Antonov (In-season)
Cold War's update is coming tomorrow, April 20 at 9PM PT and Warzone's is dropping 24 hours later on April 21 at 9PM PT. You'll have to download them separately if you're playing both games. Season 3 isn't officially set to 'begin' until April 22, so content included in these updates may be inaccessible until Activision deems it so.
Those are the Season 3 highlights, but there's still a gaping hole in all of this that has yet to be filled: the Warzone nuke event and what it could mean for its Verdansk map. Signs point to a new map being introduced this week, possibly the revamped Verdansk map that was leaked a few weeks ago.
- Warzone bunker codes: All combinations and locations
- Warzone map: Master Verdansk and Rebirth Island
