Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone Season 6 impressions — The final bullet

The end is nigh. With The Haunting here, the final season of the current game is upon us. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III certainly had a challenging beginning, but several tremendous seasons made it into a killer title. Tie in the live service explosion from Sledgehammer and Raven and it’s been a good Call of Duty cycle. That said, you like to end with a bang, and this eruption is a bit on the quiet side.

For reference, there is no Reloaded midway point this season. With Black Ops 6 arriving in just over a month, it’s better to release everything now. Ranked Play will also discontinue a week before Black Ops 6 launches, so you’ll need to put a lot of grind in if you’re wanting to get that final jump in the rankings. Given the shorter season, it’s felt in the content, with a small amount of new and a lot of variation of what’s already there.

There are still a few new items to celebrate. Starting with the weaponry, the DTIR-30-06 battle rifle and the Kastov LSW light machine gun are this season’s additions. The DTIR is… well, busted. It was a lot worse at the season’s start, but got a slight nerf right away. Even afterwards, it wrecks. With the right attachments, it has almost no recoil, and it’s only real weakness is movement speed. If you want to three bullet people in multiplayer or obliterate opponents long range in Warzone, this is an easy recommendation.

The Kastov LSW is good as well, but it’s a bit odd in implementation. On its own it’s decent, but a random new underbarrel attachment changes how you approach it. The Bracefire-HC grip gives your operator a side grip, and because of it there is no more iron sighting. That doesn’t matter in this game, as you can swap over to tac-stance to compensate. What that underbarrel really does, however, is give you insane strafe and sprint speeds. These honestly shouldn’t exist for an LMG, but here it’s a bit hilarious. It’s not so over the top as to be broken though, more of a novelty than anything.

Another novelty this season is a singular new map surrounded by variants. Drive Thru is a 6v6 small map, and it’s only a tad larger than Shipment but smaller than something like Shoot House. It has a boxy shape with a diner in the middle, and lots of spooky vibes to go along with it. What I don’t like are the rough spawns and irritating flanks you’ll encounter; there are plenty of moments where you’ll die as soon as you spawn in. There are few good sightlines on the map as well, so prepare to be in close range gunfights more often than none. It’s a good map to level up your SMGs or shotguns with high engagements.

Meat also gets a makeover with Mad Cow, and I could do without this one. It’s really grimey and you’re wading in knee high nasty water, which means if you try to go prone, you’ll be swimming. It makes movement almost impossible, relegating many to sit back at headies. As if this wasn’t already an odd map in terms of flow, this makes it worse. Shipment has already seen its fair share of paint jobs, so I don’t know why we needed five more of it. There’s some cool ideas here like Ghost Ship and Stay High, but I’d have preferred another good 6v6 map over random reskins.

Warzone has arguably gotten the most content in Season 6, with The Haunting taking over two maps. I’m admittedly a bit confused as to the abandonment of Zombies; even though Warzone certainly is bigger business, I’d have loved to see Zombies included as free-to-play with The Haunting being a big part of MWZ. It’s a shame, but it’s what we have.

The first part of Warzone’s changes is Hellspawn, a new map variant for Rebirth Island. It’s much darker, and infected with whatever evil energy is behind the transformation. There’s even a floating Shipment island hovering above, and you can even reach it if you can figure out how. The zombies here don’t seem like normal Call of Duty zombies in my opinion, more of a custom shambler for this new map and mode.

Vondel also gets a skin, but a much more boring one. The locale is simply in night mode, with a permanent dusk on the horizon. Lights are powered on in the buildings you’ll be around, and… well, that’s really it. Zombies are still making their way around, but unlike the vicious and grotesque nature of Hellspawn, it seems a bit misplaced here.

New modes are the second part of The Haunting’s Warzone possession. Purgatory is neat, but more of a fun warmup for playing Warzone. With unlimited respawns, a two hour time limit, and immediate loadouts, you’ll simply kill players and zombies as long as you wish. It’s a good way to grind for camos and challenges at least. There is a “Torment” meter, where your visibility to enemies rises the more eliminations you get. I haven’t played it to the fifth and final level, but I can imagine things getting violent. Thankfully, there are plenty of power ups to grab like unlimited ammo or grenades, along with two different safe zone bubbles you can abscond to in order to adjust your loadouts or maybe just take a break.

Zombie Royale is the other mode, which resembles the classic mode we’ve received in previous Hauntings. Teams spawn in, and if eliminated, become zombies with a chance to collect syringes around the map for another exfil. It’s not a lot different from previous iterations beyond the arsenal, but it’s still a good time. There is a form of a jailbreak, a mechanic from Warzone where spectators are all released back into the game. Assuming your teammates are still alive, this extra chance every few minutes keeps things intense, especially considering it’s happening on the smaller maps.

That is one thing that surprises me. Ursikstan has been our one big battle royale map, and it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention over this year’s cycle. Considering Area 99 is going to be the first map from Treyarch as part of the integration with Black Ops 6. That means there’s a good chance we won’t see Urzikstan get any updates beyond the new guns and mechanics at all. It’s sad seeing it abandoned, with the main new feature being the SuperStore locale from Season 5. It’s a good map, but will end its run underutilized; never being used for Ranked or The Haunting.

The final piece of the final seasonal impressions is, of course, about battle passes and bundles. Every The Haunting event has had fun crossovers, but for horror fans, this one has to take the cake. Alone might be the creepiest operator I’ve ever seen, with an Amalgam-like zombie form that is terrifying. Michael Myers is Michael Myers, scary in his own way. The bundle operators also draw from a ton of different horror films, like Terrifier and Smile. Modern Warfare III is arguably the strongest we’ve seen in these operator collaborations, and it’ll be interesting to see how Treyarch can outdo Sledgehammer’s offerings.

It’s a bit of a sad goodbye to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III cycle. Warzone will continue it to a degree, with operators and weapons existing in its ecosystem. But, this is truly the beginning of the end. It wasn’t the perfect Call of Duty, but what it has morphed into has been tons of fun. Stay frosty MWIII.

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