Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Zombies is an Undead Battle Royale

Never one to waste the hard work of all its studios, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is bringing Zombies to the modern-day, albeit with the twists you’d expect from the mode. Now an open world featuring co-op and PvE adventure on a massive map, Zombies borrows a bit from Warzone. It still retains a lot of the camp and silliness long-time fans are familiar with, but there are some new battle royale twists.

MW3 Zombies: Battle Royale of the Dead

There are quite a few new wrinkles to the MW3 Zombies experience. One of the biggest is the world itself. While open-world Zombies isn’t new to the franchise, I don’t think it’s ever been this big. In MW3, you’ll fight the hordes of the undead in the new Urzikstan map, the newest Warzone play space.

You won’t be the only squad there, either. A total of 24 players will take the field in MW3 Zombies, either as pre-made squads or as solo players. Your goal, of course, is the same. Get in, complete objectives, and get out. When you see another group of players, you can team up with them to make “super squads.” These let you take on some of the mode’s toughest challenges.

Storm of the Undead

Adding to the battle royale feel, there’s now an encroaching zone that covers the whole map after 45 minutes. However, unlike traditional battle royale games, this purple stuff doesn’t slowly kill you. Instead, it empowers the zombies — then keeps powering them up until you either exfil or die. There might be a way to clear some of the gas by going out and completing specific optional objectives, but in the October 5 CoD NEXT presentation about the mode, and the accompanying trailer, it seemed pretty clear there’s no infinite play.

Instead, Zombies in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is designed to be endlessly repeatable without being an endless single round. To progress, you’ll be going in and getting out over and over again, learning the map, gaining resources, unlocking gear, and so on.

It’s More Than Just Zombies

There are also brand new threats to face. As the story of Zombies now revolves around Zakhaev and his hunt for the Aetherium element, you’ll be taking on human-AI enemies, as well. They didn’t seem to be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but the mode also seems to take that into account. You can now summon the hordes against the human enemies and watch the two sides attempt to tear each other apart.

You’ll need to work together as a squad and a server to take on the threats in MW3 Zombies, which include several boss-level threats. While these enemies drop valuable rewards when defeated, taking them down is no easy task. In short, the only people who aren’t out to kill you in Modern Warfare 3 Zombies are the other actual people in the lobby. A far cry from Warzone, eh? Stay tuned for more as we get closer to the release of MW3 on November 10 for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms.