Activision and Infinity Ward have added DMZ to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's early access schedule. Players who pre-order the game can enter the extraction mode on Tuesday, October 20, three days before the full release on Friday, October 23, according to a Call of Duty blog post published on October 9 and reported by IGN, Destructoid and GameSpot. Dexerto reported that Infinity Ward also announced the date on X the same day.
DMZ early access sits alongside the campaign early access already offered to pre-order customers, which begins on Friday, October 16. Core multiplayer is not part of either window and arrives with the full launch, IGN reported. The schedule as the outlets reported it:
- Campaign early access: Friday, October 16
- DMZ early access: Tuesday, October 20
- Full launch, including multiplayer: Friday, October 23
According to IGN and GameSpot, the perk applies to pre-orders of either the standard edition or the Vault Edition on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2. Dexerto listed two further pre-order bonuses: a Hunter Killer Operator skin and an Inner Circle M4 blueprint, which has a variant only Xbox players can see.
What the blog post detailed
Infinity Ward described the mode as Call of Duty's "definitive extraction shooter experience," built around persistent progression in an open-world area called the Hajin Exclusion Zone, IGN reported. GameSpot said human players share the map with AI combatants while searching for loot, crafting gear and completing objectives, and that rewards are kept only by reaching an exfil point.
Destructoid's summary of the post covered the Forward Operating Base, a hub between deployments where players manage operators, craft or improve weapons and visit vendors; operator levels, prestige bonuses and three skill trees; a bounty system; and an MIA system that spends DMZ cash to recover lost operators. Destructoid also noted that three days of extra progression could give early players an edge over those who start at launch, an imbalance it argued would weigh more in an extraction mode than in multiplayer or Warzone.
A second version of DMZ
DMZ first launched in 2022 as a beta, and support for that version ended in late 2023, according to IGN. Joe Cecot, multiplayer creative director at Infinity Ward, described what the studio took from it in a behind-the-scenes video.
There's an interesting story with the DMZ beta, where we had to make some decisions. Certain things we wanted to do, we couldn't do.
Cecot said the team learned it had built an approachable sandbox that was fun to fight in, explore and make friends in, and that the studio left "a bunch of stuff" on the table that it set out to build once its previous game was finished.
