Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 Tactical Guide – New Features, DMZ, and More

The next era of Battle Royale is upon us with Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, the redefined free-to-play experience introducing all new gameplay features and new modes like DMZ. It all starts with Al Mazrah, the epic battleground from the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II universe.

Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is live on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. Read on for a preview of the epic action ahead.

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Battle Royale Overview

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In Battle Royale, except for a starting pistol and two armor plates to begin the match, all Operators must hunt down items within the map after deployment.

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Loadouts, Custom Weapons, Streamlined Backpack

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A Loadout in Battle Royale contains the following:

• Primary and Secondary Weapon
• Lethal and Tactical Equipment
• Perk Package – A pre-made set of four Perks containing Modern Warfare II Base, Bonus, and Ultimate Perks.

Loadouts arrive in Loadout Drops, which can descend at any time between the second and sixth Circle Collapses through an in-game event. Loadouts can also be earned earlier in the match by clearing out a Stronghold. More details on those below.

Custom Weapons: Instead of buying Loadouts from a Buy Station, the Buy Station sells only Custom Primary Weapons from your Loadouts. For your full Loadout, you’ll have to risk the trip to a Loadout Drop or clear out a Stronghold.

Circle Collapse: In some games, the Circle Collapse will behave as normal: one circle that closes in several stages. In others, the Circle Collapse can split into multiple circles, up to three in some cases. This can happen at any time in between the first and final two collapses.

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Guide to the New Gulag

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The new Gulag is a roughly symmetrical, small-scale arena built for 2v2 combat. Operators who are sent to the Gulag – upon first death in a Battle Royale before the final Circle Collapses – will be randomly paired up with another fallen Operator. All players will receive a pre-defined Loadout with highly effective weaponry and gear placed towards the center.

Instead of a central flag, the Overtime mechanic is a Jailer that jumps down onto the circular platform midway through the Gulag match. The Jailer has increased health and a Minigun. Eliminating the Jailer instead of the opposition brings all four Gulag entrants back into the match.

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DMZ 101

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Infiltrate Al Mazrah, complete faction-based missions, Contracts, and side objectives, then exfil out before dying.

Operators begin the match set in random points around Al Mazrah. Each Operator carries a Backpack that holds everything from weapons to equipment, cash, and other valuable items. You’ve got one life and dying results in the loss of all non-permanent items in your Backpack. Squadmates can revive each other, so don’t stray too far.

Backpack: Except for the weapons and items in your active Loadout, everything goes into your Backpack, including cash, extra ammo, weapons, equipment, and other valuables.

Exfiltrate: Exfiltrate at any time during the match. This is done by calling in a helicopter transport at specific marked locations. After all marked exfil locations are used, a final exfil point is revealed – this is the last means of escape before the match ends. Survive the trip there, defend the area, and get out.

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Meet the Factions

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Your main objective in DMZ is to complete missions given to you by one of three factions. These missions are selected prior to each match and can be completed at your own pace. The various factions are:

Legion: A private military contractor and the first of the factions an Operator can accept jobs from. The Legion is desperate to gain a foothold in the global conflict, and the soldiers who join them are said to no longer exist on paper.

White Lotus: For years, White Lotus used Al Mazrah’s abundance of natural resources to help fuel its benefactors, who are rapidly expanding their public infrastructure projects both within and beyond its borders. However, attrition from Al Qatala and other factions have reduced their presence in the area.

Black Mous: An anonymous, decentralized group, Black Mous have a shadow presence over the DMZ. Despite a lack of known leadership, the group is built on three key tenets: Do not talk about the Black Mous, do not reveal your personal identity, and do not attack the defenseless.

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Contracts, World Activities, and PvP

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In addition to faction missions, Operators can participate in other activities within DMZ.

Contracts: Just like in Battle Royale, DMZ contains side objectives that can be accepted in-match for cash and other rewards. Contracts include objectives like Secure Intel, Geiger Search, Elimination, Hostage Rescue, Cargo Delivery, and Hunt.

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World Activities

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• Safes: These contain tons of cash but take time to crack open. The drill used to open a Safe attracts AI Combatants and is loud enough to draw the attention of enemy Operators, too.
• SAM Sites: These anti-air turrets can shoot down planes carrying precious cargo; activate them to potentially earn a Supply Box.
• UAV Towers: Find these around Al Mazrah to receive intel on AI Combatant and Operator locations via the mini-map.
• Hidden Caches: Not marked on the map, these sites are worth seeking out for their valuable item drops.
• Strongholds: These also exist in Battle Royale; skip down to the Strongholds overview for more details.

Occasionally, parts of Al Mazrah may be under the effects of two conditions:

• Sandstorms: As a desert city, these conditions can kick up at any time, reducing visibility and damaging Operators over time.
• Radiation: This deadly condition can poison Operators. Iodine Pills, a new Field Upgrade, can be found to counteract its effects.

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Enemy Operators and Assimilation

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While DMZ focuses mainly on eliminating AI Combatants, you may also encounter other Operators during your travels across Al Mazrah. In squad-based DMZ matches, squads can assimilate with one another instead of fighting, thus forging an alliance.

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Storage and Item Permanence

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Anything you extract from the DMZ – cash, weapons, and other items – are kept in Storage, which can be accessed at any time between matches in the pre-match lobby. You are free to take anything from Storage and put it into the Backpack or active Loadout for the next infiltration.

Contraband Weapons: Any weapon found within DMZ is considered a Contraband Weapon. This includes weapons found on Operators, AI combatants, and around the map. In DMZ, extracting with any Contraband weapon unlocks it across all other game modes.

Weapon Blueprints: Other than Contraband, you also have access to Weapon Blueprints in DMZ. Weapon Blueprints have a unique property-they are not permanently lost upon death. Instead, dying in DMZ with a Weapon Blueprint on your person makes the Blueprint momentarily inaccessible.

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General Overview – All Modes

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Proximity Chat

Both Battle Royale and DMZ matches will have Proximity Chat enabled. In DMZ, Proximity Chat is crucial to ensuring an assimilation goes as planned. In Battle Royale, Proximity Chat is most useful to discuss strategy with your Gulag partner before the duel begins.

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Strongholds and Black Sites

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Strongholds: The first team to reach a Stronghold must clear all enemies and defuse a bomb before time expires, thus earning the items within plus a Loadout Crate and a UAV ping of the surrounding area.

In Battle Royale, three Strongholds are activated at the end of the first Circle Collapse. In DMZ, Operators must first locate a key within the map to access one of several available Strongholds.

Black Sites: Available only in Battle Royale, the Black Site is a more difficult variant of the Stronghold and features tough enemies, including a boss-level enemy such as a Juggernaut. The reward for completing a Black Site is well worth it: first, a permanent Weapon Blueprint rewarded for use in all modes.

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Vehicles

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Vehicular combat gets a serious upgrade in Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0. Hop into a wide variety of vehicles for transportation across land, air, and sea. Each includes its own Operator capacity and armor rating, so choose wisely for the task at hand.

Some of the vehicles Operators will encounter include the ATV, UTV, Hatchback, Chop Top, SUV, Tactical Vehicle, Hummer EV, Light Helo, Heavy Chopper, RHIB, and the Armored Patrol Boat. Operators have multiple actions available to them when interacting with certain vehicles, including leaning out of windows to fire their weapons, swapping seats, and climbing onto the roof. Vehicles can have their tires blown out and their doors knocked off.

Fuel and Health: Fuel reserves appear as a meter alongside the vehicle’s damage and passenger counter at the bottom of the HUD. Fuel can be refilled either with Gas Cans found around the map, or at Gas Stations, so plan accordingly.

You can also repair vehicle damage. For land vehicles, fix tire damage by manually interacting with each tire to replace it. Vehicles also repair damage over time at Gas Stations.

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Buy Station 2.0

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Purchase items like Custom Weapons, Gas Masks, Killstreaks, Armor, and more at Buy Stations using cash earned in the match. In Battle Royale, buy back your fallen squadmates; in DMZ, sell the unwanted gear in your Backpack for extra cash.

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Interrogations

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After successfully downing an enemy player in a squad-based mode, you can interrogate them, briefly pinging the location of their allies both via the mini-map and outlines (like a Snapshot Grenade). This effect dissipates once the interrogator is more than 10 meters away from the interrogated enemy.

Note that the person being interrogated can also call for help, marking the interrogator’s position on the map, so think before rushing in to interrogate fallen enemies.

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Aquatic Combat

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Operators can now swim and navigate waterways, rivers, and the open sea as part of their strategy. While underwater, an Operator can only use small melee weapons and Sidearms, as well as equipment pieces like Throwing Knives.

Some lethal and tactical equipment pieces, along with Killstreaks, also have special properties on water. For example, Proximity Mines float on the surface of the water, threatening enemy boats.

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Prepare to Drop In, Ready Up with Modern Warfare II

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Purchase Modern Warfare II on Xbox to get access to a ton of content across three modes, including the ability to unlock 14 Operators and level up over 50 weapons across 30 available Weapon Platforms for use in Multiplayer and Special Ops.

Modern Warfare II owners get bonus XP while playing Warzone 2.0 – at the end of each match, owners will receive additional XP on top of any earned match XP. That’s in addition to all the content coming in Season 01, including the first ever Raid arriving midseason.

Stay frosty.