Warzone Season One Reloaded introduces a new Champions Quest Contract, a Gulag public event, and an alternative exfil method. Here is everything coming in the first mid-season update for MW3.
Urzikstan opened its doors to Warzone players on Dec. 6, and after one month of learning the ropes, community members have a good grasp on what the new battle royale experience has to offer.
Whether it be the new movement mechanics, perk system, or massive pool of weapons, there were a lot of new bells and whistles to get accustomed to. But when community members were starting to get comfortable, Season One Reloaded added a few new wrinkles.
Warzone Season One Reloaded patch notes
Season One Reloaded introduces a new gulag variant, brings back Champions Quest contracts, and fixes audio issues. But the first things players will want to know is what weapons were either buffed or nerfed.
Season One Reloaded nerfs LMGs, MTZ 762, and KATT-AMR
Warzone community members argued that the MTZ Interceptor felt ‘unchanged’ after the most recent nerf and begged the devs to nerf the Battle Rifle again as part of the Season One Reloaded update. The mid-season update omitted a further nerf to the MTZ Interceptor, but the devs promised additional changes to the battle rifle and WSP Swarm in a future update.
However, the mid-season update still did take down a few weapons. The MTZ 762 has its max, near-mid, and min damage values decreased. Additionally, the Bruen MK9, DG LSW, Pulyemot 762, and TAQ Eradicator all had their min and max damage values decreased.
One-shot sniping will still be powerful in Warzone, but the mid-season update nerfed the damage range and velocity benefits of the popular ZANG-34 Barrel attachment.
Meanwhile, the Holger 556 had its max damage increased from 32 to 35, and the MCW had its max damage increased. For short-range meta weapons, the ISO 9mm had its max, near-mid, mid, and far-mid damage values reduced, and the AMR9 received a nice buff to damage values across the board.
Audio improvements and map polish
Raven Software explained, “Improvements have been made to audio occlusion on Urzikstan.” Occlusion occurs when an element of the map blocks the player from hearing correctly. The update also reduced the volume of friendly slides, jumps, and lands so players can differentiate easily between friend and foe.
The update also fixed 50 mantle spots, mounting spots, 150 areas that caused clipping, and 20 exploitable areas. 43 buildings will also have better lighting.
Champions Quest returns to Warzone
Warzone 2 introduced Champions Quest, a rare contract that challenged squads to construct a nuke. Upon completion, the bomb went off and ended the match. The popular contract is back for Modern Warfare 3’s iteration of the battle royale but looks slightly different.
To unlock the contract, players must either win 30 games total within a season or five consecutive matches. From there, squads will be tasked with completing a contract, but the devs did not yet reveal any details on what that challenge looks like.
NVG Gulag event
Raven Software spiced up the Gulag in Warzone by adding variations to the classic one-vs-one encounter. Go Again gives players another chance at winning a Gulag match if they lose on their first go, Cash Grab scatters money around the battlefield to loot, and Locked & Loaded gives both competitors fully upgraded weapons and armor.
Season One Reloaded adds a new public event to the mix in which the lights turn off and players duke it out while wearing night vision goggles.
Weapon Case and Covert Exfil
Like the DMZ event in Warzone 2 that had players exfil with a weapon blueprint, Sledgehammer Games introduces a similar concept in Season One Reloaded with the Weapon Case.
The Weapon Case spawns in a marked location at the start of every match, and players are marked for everyone else on the map after picking up the case. If a player stays alive until the end of the match while holding the case, they earn exclusive rewards. But to make the task easier, the devs added a new secondary win condition.
Squads can exfil early by purchasing a Covert Exfil at Buy Stations before the Gulag closes, which helicopters a team out of the match early. It’s important to note that there are only five exfils available to purchase per match, and the exfils don’t count as a traditional win.
Players can take advantage of the feature if they want to extract a Weapon Case without needing to survive until the end of a match.
