Judge Dredd, new modes, maps and everything coming to Warzone and Black Ops Cold War with the mid-season update

As we’ve come to expect from Call of Duty’s mid-season updates, the Season 5 refresh brings a host of new content to both Warzone and Black Ops Cold War. The new content becomes available Thursday, September 9 in the two games, but the updates themselves arrive September 7 in Black Ops Cold War, and the following day in Warzone.

The Black Ops Cold War multiplayer side gets a new 6v6 map in the form of Zoo, a remake of a DLC map from the original Black Ops. Zoo is a mid-size map that will get its own 24/7 playlist once the update goes live.

A new mode is also on the way: Demolition. This classic mode is essentially Search and Destroy with respawns.

In Zombies, Outbreak gets a new region: Armada. This one is based on the multiplayer map of the same name. Alongside the new zone, there’s also a new Outbreak World Event. This takes the form of a new chest type, available across all Outbreak regions. The blog post didn’t say what players can expect from the black chest, but hinted that it will bolster player loadouts.

That’s not even the end of Outbreak content, because the mid-season update also introduces a limited-time event called Survival. This event will kick off alongside The Numbers event in Warzone (more on that below) and turns Outbreak into a hardcore survival experience.

Players will only spawn with a Field Upgrade, and a 1911 pistol. You’re still required to finish the main objective and either exfil or warp, but you’ll be doing so under the effects of some punishing modifiers. Some of those include a disabled mini-map, scrambled HUD and more.

You don’t automatically regenerate HP after taking damage in Survival. Instead, you’ll need to pick up food to heal. There are four rarities you can come across, which heal you from 50HP all the way to 150HP. The highest tier heals for 200HP and offers 1HP per second regen for 60 seconds.

Treyarch hasn’t forgotten about round-based Zombies either. The new update introduces the Rampage Inducer, a new Essence canister in the starting area that will temporarily ramp up the standard difficulty into Cranked-level madness – provided everyone on the team agrees. This essentially means zombies will spawn much faster, and become more powerful until round 20.

Warzone is getting a new mode at the start of the mid-season: Clash. This mode is basically TDM, pitting two teams of 50 players against each other in a race to reach 500 points, with respawns enabled.

Later in the season, Iron Trials ’84 kicks off. This mode brings a hardcore twist to Warzone. Players’ health will be increased, but regen reduced. Free loadouts have been removed, so you’ll need to buy them from Buy Stations, which now also has them at more expensive prices.

The Gulag remains, but weapon selection will be very limited. You’ll only come across harder-to-use weapons. If you win, you get to return with whatever weapon you won with. The blog also hinted at other environmental changes, but details are slim at the moment.

The Numbers Event is the biggest item on the ticket for Warzone. Kicking off September 21, the event will see the mobile broadcast stations all around Verdansk begin blaring the Numbers broadcasts. If you interact with them, you’ll get $2,000 to use in the current match. Each interaction after that will bring an exclusive reward, like calling cards, charms, XP bonuses and stickers.

When the event launches, you’ll also find a new reward track that offers unique unlocks in both Warzone and Black Ops Cold War.

Finally, new skins are coming to both games. The most prominent of which is Judge Dredd, a skin for the Warsaw Pact’s Beck.

Activision is being sued by the State of California over widespread sexism, discrimination and a so-called “frat boy culture.” The state’s office of Fair Employment and Housing recently expanded the lawsuit to include temp workers, accusing the company of destroying evidence.

While Activision has yet to officially respond to the lawsuit in court, the company has taken some steps to address the problems, even if many believe they don’t go far enough. So far, the bulk of that fell onto Blizzard, which has lost its president and HR lead alongside several other high-profile, long-serving designers.