Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s Zombies mode looks and sounds a lot like a repurposed DMZ

It's not what Zombies fans were hoping for.

Call of Duty operators fight across Urzikstan in MW3 Zombies.
Image via Activision

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s Zombies mode, Operation Deadbolt, is a familiar foray into a third mode for CoD games. But that third mode is not Zombies, it’s DMZ.

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MW3’s Zombies mode (MWZ) borrows just about everything from the extraction mode left behind in Modern Warfare 2, including Active Duty Operators (now called Strike Team Operators) and Insured Weapons.

MW3 Zombies Strike Team Operator slots
Look familiar, DMZ players? Image via Activision

In revealing MWZ in a new blog post today, it’s easy to see why Activision isn’t updating DMZ with new content beyond MW2’s year. It’s likely because those resources are being repurposed toward MWZ.

In MWZ, Activision says players will “complete contracts to earn Essence, collect Acquisitions, and clear Missions to discover what is really happening in the Exclusion Zone” where the main objective is to “immerse yourself and work with other players to complete the more difficult mission objectives, and extract before you’re overwhelmed.”

Calling this mode Modern Warfare Zombies is a good thing to differentiate it from Treyarch’s popular round-based mode because this is absolutely nothing like the Zombies mode that came before it. But at least DMZ players have something to look forward to now.

MWZ has Field Upgrades, Perk-a-Colas, the Ray Gun, and Wonder Weapons like previous Zombies iterations, but make no mistake about it: This is a hybrid of DMZ with Black Ops Cold War’s Outbreak mode.

One positive, though, is that players will be able to explore the future Warzone map Urzikstan in MWZ before it comes to battle royale in season one this December. The entirety of Urzikstan is playable in the Zombies experience, much like how Al Mazrah was fully playable in DMZ.

A screenshot of the loadout screen in MW3 Zombies.
MW3 Zombies in a nutshell. Image via Activision

You can read all about the ins and outs of MWZ on the CoD blog.

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Scott Duwe
Senior Staff Writer & Call of Duty lead. Professional writer for over 10 years. Lover of all things Marvel, Destiny 2, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and more. Previous bylines include PC Gamer, Red Bull Esports, Fanbyte, and Esports Nation. DogDad to corgis Yogi and Mickey, sports fan (NY Yankees, NY Jets, NY Rangers, NY Knicks), Paramore fanatic, cardio enthusiast.