Zombies return to Call of Duty: Warzone in a new limited-time mode

I've always found the inclusion of zombies in Call of Duty a bit like sprinkling hot sauce over a perfectly good roast dinner, a lazy and incongruous way to add flavour to an experience that simply doesn't need it. I am, however, clearly in a minority, given how avidly the CoD community welcome these animate corpses whenever Activision wheels them out on a gurney from its secret underground laboratory.

In any case, Warzone is getting an undead makeover later today, as Season 4 Reloaded's limited time mode "Rebirth of the Dead" prepares to sink its teeth into your skull-sponge. Rebirth of the Dead is a bespoke game mode where teams of four drop into the map to do battle with other players. Unlike vanilla Warzone, however, players aren't carted off to the Gulag when they die, as killed players come back as walking human jerky.

Much of Rebirth of the Dead will be familiar to players to participated in 2020's Zombie Royale. But the new event does make a few changes over that earlier game mode. Chief among these is a new 'Infestation' meter, which fills up as zombies are killed, respawning every zombie on the map once it hits its peak. There are also now multiple ways to acquire the syringes that enable players to rise from their graves. As well as gaining syringes by killing players, you can also find them inside crates.

Warzone's most interesting contribution to the battle royale formula was giving players multiple opportunities to stay in the game, and it sounds like Rebirth of the Dead aims to further extend the chaotic back-and-forth that makes Warzone's gigantic game of cat-and-mouse so distinctive. Rebirth of the Dead isn't the only new feature coming in Season 4 Reloaded, either. The event also adds Nitro Bursts for SUVs, Portable Redeploy Balloons, and Terminator Bundles available for purchase in the store.

Warzone Season 4 Reloaded launches today at 5pm BST, or 12pm EDT/9am PDT.

Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.