Newsletter
Modern Warfare II and its season 6 content patch titled ‘The Haunting’ are just around the corner. The new season launches next week Wednesday on September 27 and there’s a lot of stuff coming with this patch.
One of the more notable additions is the large collection of different operators and operator skins being added. Most of which revolve around comic character Spawn. Operators and operator skins though are just one small portion of the upcoming season. There’s actually a massive amount of content for ‘The Haunting’ in season 6 that Modern Warfare players are going to want to dive into. And this includes new maps, new weapons, new weapon and skin bundles, new modes and more.
The entire theme of the season is based around Halloween as The Haunting is basically the Modern Warfare II version of the spooky holiday event for this year. And there’s a lot of that laced throughout the different content additions. So let’s break it all down below.
Modern Warfare II ‘The Haunting’ content will include multiple limited time modes
This is where a large portion of the content is coming from. There’s multiple limited-time modes being added in that follow the Haunting theme for some devilishly delightful and extra spooky gameplay. Keep in mind that all of the new modes are going to be added mid-season. Closer to Halloween at the end of the month.
Operation Nightmare
Kicking things off with Operation Nightmare, this mode will take place in Al Mazrah and looks to be focused mainly on PvE content. Players will need to discover and hunt down eldritch horrors spawning across the map to rid Al Mazrah of the devastation that lies ahead if they fail. Activision says players will face off against plenty of monstrous targets. And there’s even a bounty board of terrors to clear.
Vondead
As the name suggests this mode takes place on the Vondel map. It’s not immediately clear what the main task of this mode will be. But by the sounds of it, Vondead will have players killing scores of summoned zombies. There will be otherworldly activities happening at certain points of interest that players can discover. And Activision hints at hidden rewards to be found too. One curious part of this mode will have players attempting to summon a “hulking demon” that’s “known in myth and legend as The Butcher.”
Players can test their skills by descending into the underworld to try and defeat the Butcher for rewards. So it sounds like the Butcher from the Diablo franchise could be coming to Call of Duty. Judging from the fact that both Lilith and Inarius are making the jump from Diablo IV to become operators in season 6, “the Butcher” being referred to here is potentially one in the same.
Zombie Royale
Zombie Royale is returning from past Haunting events but things are being updated with some new improvements. It’s more or less the same gameplay as before though. You launch into a battle royale mode and try to fight off hordes of enemy zombie players. If you’re caught you can come back as a zombie and hunt down others to try and turn them. Players will also “find several impressive abilities available to you as you attempt to savagely tear apart the remaining human Operators, all the while collecting special syringes with the purpose of ending your undead purgatory and returning to fight as a human.”
For those who have played and loved Zombie Royale in the past, it sounds like Activision is amping things up for you.
Vondead Lockdown
The last of the new limited-time modes for Warzone 2.0 is Vondead Lockdown. This is essentially the same as Lockdown from season 4 but with the whole undead ‘Haunting’ twist to it.
The Haunting in DMZ
There’s not going to be a new mode for DMZ but there will be Haunting related content in it. Players will be able to drop into Al Mazrah in DMZ and gather intel on all the monstrous horrors that will be showing up in Operation Nightmare. Activision also recommends going into DMZ to do this prep for the challenges to come.
Get down with six new multiplayer maps
As with each new season so far, season 6 will introduce a collection of new maps for multiplayer. There will be six new multiplayer maps total and four of them will be available at launch. Two are core maps so they’ll be playable across essentially all or most multiplayer modes. And should pop up in rotation. These include La Casa, and Koro Village. There’s also going to be two new Gunfight maps being added. These are King and Fight.
Here’s what’s really cool. Both Koro Village and King are returning maps. Koro Village is a map from Call of Duty 2 in 2005. And King is a firing range map that was released for Modern Warfare (2019). Both will add some nice levels of nostalgia for longtime series fans.
Later in the mid-season update Activision is also adding some reskinned ‘The Haunting’ versions of two maps. These will be El Asilo and Embassy.
The Haunting comes to multiplayer
It wouldn’t be fair if Warzone got all the Haunting themed content. But not to worry. There’s some multiplayer modes with a “Haunting twist” coming too. The Haunting versions of Kill Confirmed, Drop Zone (titled Drop Zone Drop Scares), Infected, and Domination are being added mid-season. All of these will have minor changes to fit the theme but should still be pretty fun. For instance, players in Drop Zone will want to “take care while opening any crates” because something might jump out at them.
Play often for event rewards
The Haunting themed event coming this season is called Soul Capture. It’s your basic collection type event where you will need to pick up the souls from dead enemies. This event will work across all game modes and progress is shared between them too.
Souls can then be turned in for event rewards just like you could do with the Trophy Hunt event from season 3.
Log in daily for even more rewards
There’s a real incentive to log in every day to play. Or at the very least log in to grab whatever rewards are there that day. Activision doesn’t give specifics but it says there are a variety of free rewards players can acquire just by logging in as The Haunting event progresses. Expect there to be at least one or two skins in here, and potentially some camos, maybe a charm, and emblems and calling cards. You know, the usual. But Haunting themed this time. There’s also going to be new rewards for ranked play for those that want to climb up the ladder.
Season 6 is adding 3 launch weapons and the chainsaw from DOOM mid-season
The weapons in Call of Duty are usually the main thing players are after. And this coming season will add four new weapons to pick up. Three of these will be available at launch and will be accessible as unlocks from the battle pass. This includes the Dual Kamas melee weapon, the ISO 9mm SMG, and a new assault rifle called the TR-76 Geist. The fourth weapon is the DOOM Chainsaw (yes that DOOM) and will be arriving mid-season. This will be part of a bundle that sounds like it will be DOOM-themed.
It’s not clear what the other items in the bundle are. But considering the DOOM chainsaw weapon, maybe it includes an operator or operator skin of the DOOM Slayer armor?
New operators and skins
We mentioned all of the main operators and skins coming in the season 6 update here. But there is one that wasn’t mentioned as it’s not going to be a main seasonal skin, and that appears to be the one from the final Oni pack for players on PlayStation. Seeing as this is the last season before Modern Warfare III launches, it seems likely there will be no more Oni packs after season 6. But that’s ok as you should be able to carry the ones you have forward.
This would be the sixth and final Oni pack made available. It isn’t explicitly mentioned. But there isn’t currently an Oni skin in the game that looks like the one in the image above. So this is very likely a skin coming sometime next season. Whether or not it’s at launch or mid-season is unclear.
Watch out for possessed equipment
You’ll already be facing down hordes of zombies, demons and other untold horrors. What else could possibly go wrong? Well it turns out, players may come into contact with possessed equipment during gameplay.
Both the decoy grenade and the suppression mine can become possessed and give off some otherworldly effects. The decoy grenade will lace the sounds of gunfire with “inhuman and monstrous sounds.” Meanwhile the suppression mine will fill the air with screams of the dead to give players a “hallucinatory audio assault.”
A new Blackcell pass adds a hybrid machine version of Valeria
Known officially as V4L3RIA, this human-machine hybrid operator will have partially transparent skin allowing players to see through to the skeletal makeup. She will also have robotic voice lines and is exclusive to the Blackcell pass ($29.99).