Home IFTTT Pocket-lint Call of Duty Warzone Season 4 Reloaded: What's new in the mid-season update?

Call of Duty Warzone Season 4 Reloaded: What's new in the mid-season update?

July 13, 2021

Call of Duty: Warzone has changed the game up entirely, with players having had weeks to get used to the new timeline and version of its Verdansk map in 1984.

Now, though, Season 4 is in full swing, and its mid-season update is on the cusp of arriving with a bunch of new content for players to sink their teeth into. Here's what we know.

When does Warzone Season 4 Reloaded start?

First up, the key timing - the mid-season update is deploying on 15 July 2021, so there's not much time left at all before it goes live. The update brings a few new bits and pieces to the Season 4 roster.

The reveal of Warzone Season 4 came during the Summer Game Fest live kickoff stream, along with a bunch of other unveilings, and we also got a gameplay trailer showing some of what was coming down the pike.

What's new in Warzone Season 4 Reloaded?

Season 4 Reloaded isn't a huge update, from the looks of things - there's a new weapon, the OTs 9 SMG, and a Mace option for melee fans, plus a new operator, Weaver.

We also know that the red doors added in Season 4 might be getting more complicated, although not exactly how. One thing they'll get is the rare chance of providing a new killstreak, the sentry gun, which will scan and shoot enemies for a minute once you deploy it.

That could shake the meta up a little, and we'll have to hope it's balanced and genuinely scarce. Beyond that, these updates typically bring some significant balance changes, so we're hopeful that Raven Software's mission to make the game less punishing from a time-to-kill perspective carries on.

We'd love to see nerfs to the FARA and C58 assault rifles, among others, but only the full patch notes will tell us all. For now, the Call of Duty blog has a more broad-brush overview you can check out.

What did Season 4 add?

Looking back to Season 4's main launch, Raven Software fully detailed the main changes that arrived as part of themupdate, and there were absolutely loads of points to check out.

The biggest visual change was the arrival of a variety of crashed satellites at various points around the Verdansk map, which added some interesting cover and combat opportunities. Plus, there was a new vehicle for the very first time since launch - a dirt bike that's perfect for a single rider with one passenger.

There was also a new gulag map, which was welcome - it's based on the central part of multiplayer map Hijacked, so will be familiar to some in layout. Finally, the Black Ops series' signature red doors started to appear around Verdansk, zapping players around to rewarding loot.

We also got new operators, as usual: Jackal and Salah. They brought new weaponry to play with too, in the form of the C58 assault rifle, MG 82 LMG and a stealthy nail gun,. There was also a seasonal event called Groundfall which brought some challenges and cosmetic rewards for a week or two.

Big news was also there on the technical front for PS5 players - the game finally added support for 120Hz displays for improved framerates, like the Series X. We'd been under the impression this wouldn't arrive until a full native PS5 version is eventually released, but Raven seems to have cracked the code somehow.

The biggest changes in some ways might be those detailed in Raven's super-extensive patch notes, though, which included loads of detail. There have been big changes to how barrel attachments work on Cold War guns, making them more viable than ever, as well as big balance changes to individual weapons (and yet another nerf for the beloved AMAX!).

Perhaps most interesting of all, it looks like we've finally got a major adjustment to the much-hated Roze skin, Rook - its all-black advantage seems to have been shaved away by a new greyer colour-scheme. Here's hoping people don't just migrate to a new sweaty skin if this change really does work!

What arrived in the mid-season Season Three Reloaded update?

Looking further back, Warzone's Season 3 update may have been sizeable, but it still left plenty to be fixed and updated, so Raven Software didn't wait too long to bring a sizeable mid-season update to bear.

The patch brought some new content, including unlocking the new AMP63 SMG, which players had been looking forward to equipping and levelling up.

We also got some major tweaks to a number of weapons including initial balance passes for the popular AMAX assault rifle, the FARA, Sweetsweeper shotgun and the Bullfrog SMG, all of which had felt a little overpowered at times. 

More have arrived, in the form of changes to how suppressors work on Cold War weapons, and some tweaks to make Cold War snipers feel more viable compared to their Modern Warfare counterparts. Plus, and this is hugely welcome, there's been a major reduction in the spawn rate of Stopping Power rounds. 

Most pressingly, though, the Reloaded update brought a new content drop focusing around a couple of 80s action icons - Rambo and Die Hard's John McClane. The below trailer gives a good sense of the madness that kicked off before the event ended.

There was a load to sink into, including the arrival of Die Hard's Nakatomi Plaza in Downtown with a host of new minor objectives to complete in and around it. It's the tallest tower ever in Warzone, so sniping is still hugely fun from its peak.

There are plenty of other points of interest, including survivor camps in homage to Rambo, where you could collect dog tags as part of another new mission type. On top of that, there were new weapons arriving and an in-game event to make everything feel easier to follow.

You can find the full details on the Call of Duty blog, alongside Raven's more detailed mechanical patch notes.

What was new in COD Warzone Season 3? 

Looking back to when Season 3 kicked off, it brought a lot of changes to the formula that has made Warzone so popular, with plenty of different elements to consider.

New Verdansk 1980s map

Warzone players have been waiting for ages to be able to explore a full-sized new map for the game, with the smaller Resurgence Island map not big enough to really count for much. For a long time, the common assumption was that we'd get a map set in the Ural mountains, bringing in a bunch of multiplayer locations that were set in that locale.

However, recent leaks have indicated that this map was shelved a while ago, in favour of the new version of Verdansk that replaced the current map at the start of Season 3. This, as we now know, is set in the 1980s, tying the game into the timeline used by Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War. 

The map's layout is largely the same, but key landmarks are noticeably different, with a less built-up Downtown, a stadium's more a building site, and no dam at all - instead, there's a tall bridge to navigate now instead, along with a Summit installation. There's loads more to explore, too, so it'll take a while for everyone to get used to each change.

New operators and weapons

A mainstay of Warzone's battle pass system is the introduction of at least one new operator to act as the front for the season. Past passes have introduced Naga, Captain Price and Ghost, among many others.

We're already seeing a lot of players running around donning the new skins released in the battle pass, in particular Wraith, who has been heavily featured in the promotional material. 

Similarly, after the huge drop of new weapons when Cold War integrated with Warzone in late 2020, the trickle of new weaponry is back to a more reasonable and manageable rate (after all, many of the Cold War weapons still don't feel fully balanced even months down the line). 

Battle passes and new seasons have typically introduced two new weapons, and they're also generally included as free tiers to ensure that everyone has the same chance to unlock them without having to fork out any COD Points. The new season brought even more, though, including the PPSH-41 SMG, Swiss K31 sniper, the Ballistic Knife melee, CARV.2 rifle, and AMP63 SMG as well - a bumper crop of new hardware to use.



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