Black Ops 7 and Warzone Season 5 Launches July 23: New Maps, Weapons, and a Zombies Finale

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Call of Duty: Warzone are about to get busy. Activision laid out the full Season 5 content drop on July 13, and almost nothing in the game is untouched: three multiplayer maps, two new modes, a Zombies Survival map, a new Verdansk point of interest, and four weapons spread across the Battle Pass and seasonal events. The update goes live at 9 AM PT on July 23 across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.

There's also a deadline buried in the announcement. Endgame, the PvE mode built into Avalon, has been playable for free through the Warzone client since it launched. Season 5 is the last time that's true. Once Season 6 begins, Endgame moves behind the full Black Ops 7 purchase, so anyone who's been dropping in for free has roughly six weeks left before that door closes.

Jubilee Headlines a Three-Map Multiplayer Lineup

Multiplayer's new addition is Jubilee, a medium-sized 6v6 map set during a Japanese street festival that's turned into a warzone. It's built around a long Main Street for longer sightlines, with a museum courtyard, a food festival, a pachinko arcade, and a garden path running behind the residential side for players who want to avoid the open middle entirely.

Jubilee arrives alongside two remasters. Frequency, originally from Black Ops 4, returns as a cliffside listening station in the mountains of Hunan, with its Catwalk, Pipes, and Server room sections intact and Black Ops 7's Wall Jump added on top. Dig, first seen in Black Ops 2, comes back as a small archaeological site in Avalon, its narrow, twisting routes now easier to navigate thanks to the game's newer movement kit.

Mid-season adds two more: Turbo Tilt, a pinball-machine-themed map built inside a giant Nuketown attraction, and Freerun: Descent, a movement-focused obstacle course rather than a traditional combat map.

Two New Modes, Plus Cranked Returns Mid-Season

Overdrive Domination mixes objective play with a star system. Capturing zones and landing stylish eliminations builds toward Operator buffs, starting with better target perception at one star and escalating to a full damage and handling boost, called Ballistic Overdrive, at six. Get eliminated or go quiet too long and the counter resets.

Gauntlet Rush cycles through five modes, Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Domination, Hardpoint, and Roulette, in two-minute blocks within the same match. Staying aggressive builds toward faster movement, quicker weapon swaps, and better headshot damage, and the mode drops Gain Stacks in the map that give a large score boost toward Scorestreaks.

Cranked Moshpit joins mid-season as a returning favorite: eliminate someone to start a countdown, and staying on that timer keeps stacking movement and reload buffs. Let it hit zero and it's game over for you, one way or another.

Season 5 Ranked Play Rewards (Multiplayer)

Warzone's Resurgence Ranked Play runs a nearly identical reward ladder this season, with its own Season 5 blueprint, decal, and rank-based camos across Rebirth Island, Fortune's Keep, and Haven's Hollow.

Zombies Gets a Survival Map Now and the Story's Ending Mid-Season

The new Eidskallen Lighthouse Survival map pulls a smaller section, Beacon Island and its lighthouse, out of the Totenreich round-based map. It's a straightforward push-your-luck mode: survive as many rounds as possible using the Arsenal, Der Wunderfizz, Mystery Box, and wall buys available in that confined space, with XP and cosmetic rewards at rounds 10, 25, and 50.

Kowakujō picks up two new ways to play. Directed Mode adds on-screen quest steps and caps runs at round 15, useful for anyone who hasn't finished the map's main story. Starting Room locks players into the Outer Ward with a fixed set of tools, Mystery Box, a wall buy, the Ghostly Rifleman Trap, and a GobbleGum machine among them, for a straight survival grind.

Rogue Run also expands, adding three new Astra Malorum playlists (Casual, Normal, Hardcore) set across locations like the Crash Site, Museum Infinitum, and Mars, each with round-based GobbleGum and Calling Card rewards and a rising difficulty curve the longer a run goes.

The bigger news lands mid-season. Black Ops 7's Zombies story wraps up with a new round-based map, Rex Infernus, where players finally face the Warden. Activision is holding most of the details for a separate Reloaded blog, but confirmed the finale ships with a new Wonder Weapon, the returning Widow's Wine Perk-a-Cola, a new GobbleGum called Fully Packed, and two additional legacy weapons, the Olympia Shotgun and TR2 Marksman Rifle.

Endgame's Burn Run Assignment, and the Clock Running Out on Free Access

Endgame's new Burn Run Assignment puts players in a bomb-rigged vehicle racing through 30 flaming arches in Avalon. Running over Fear enemies and objects adds seconds to the timer, and repair wrenches and speed boosts scattered along the route help keep the vehicle in one piece long enough to finish.

Season 5 also adds Ability Boosts, rare upgrades found mostly in Nightmare-tier zones (with a smaller chance in Zone IV) that modify a player's currently equipped Major and Minor Abilities, cutting cooldowns, adding ammo, or tacking on extra damage types. Each ability gets two Exotic variants to pick from, and the boost sticks around until the ability is swapped or the player wipes.

As for the free-to-play window: Activision confirmed Endgame stays accessible through the Warzone client for the entirety of Season 5, but the mode moves to Black Ops 7 owners only once Season 6 arrives.

Drone Labs Brings a New Fight to Verdansk

Verdansk's new point of interest sits east of TV Station and south of Quarry. Drone Labs is built around two large L-shaped buildings, Administrative Offices and Research and Development, connected by a zipline and a skybridge, with a drone obstacle course out back for anyone looking to practice their piloting. A locked garage somewhere in the facility hides an armed JLTV, though finding the code to get inside is part of the challenge.

The area's whole identity is built around drone traffic. Supply Drones and Buy Stations now float across Verdansk carrying gear, up for grabs to whoever shoots them down first. The Juggernaut Armor also returns to Resurgence and Battle Royale, alongside a new Hunter Killer Drones killstreak that drops an aerial payload on enemy positions.

Two more drone-related additions land mid-season: the Quickdrop Kit, which speeds up squad redeployment after a Most Wanted Contract, and the Special Delivery Drone, a rare drop worth chasing for exclusive weapon camos if a squad can survive long enough to claim it.

Four New Weapons Join the Arsenal

The FG42 is a full-auto rifle with strong damage and low recoil, built for medium and long-range fights rather than close-quarters trades. The Gremlin trades single-target damage for mobility and hipfire accuracy, since neither of its two guns can aim down sights. The Mammoth is the slow, hard-hitting option, an LMG meant to lay down sustained fire rather than push aggressively, and the Mace rounds things out as a high-damage, long-range melee weapon with a slow swing.

More than 40 new weapon camos are spread across Weapon Prestige tracks, the Machine of War event, Weekly Challenges, BlackCell challenges, and both Multiplayer and Warzone Ranked Play this season.

Spectre Leads the Battle Pass, Cipher Headlines BlackCell

The Season 5 Battle Pass is built around Spectre, an assassin operator whose identity is kept deliberately vague in Activision's own marketing copy. It includes over 100 unlockable items and up to 1,100 COD Points, and purchasing it unlocks an Instant Rewards page with the base Spectre skin, a Legendary blueprint for the Voyak KT-3, and a 10% XP boost right away. The two new Battle Pass weapons, the FG42 and Gremlin, are both free unlocks tied to specific pages rather than premium-only content.

BlackCell owners get the new Cipher operator, described as an escaped test subject turned mercenary, along with three additional skin variants, a Mastercraft SMG blueprint, and a melee blueprint, each with their own unlockable alternates. Activision says players who fully complete the BlackCell Battle Pass will end the season with 140 total item rewards between the two tracks.

Season 5 also runs a Treyarch 30th Anniversary event with daily login rewards, a Machine of War event tied to the new Mammoth LMG, and an Eidskallen Lighthouse leaderboard event for Zombies players chasing exclusive camos.