Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 and the other big announcements from Call of Duty Next

Activision hosted its latest Call of Duty presentation on Thursday, where the company revealed its upcoming plans for the series including new details about Modern Warfare 2, and the free-to-play battle royale sequel Warzone 2.0. Among the most important announcements was the release date for Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, which will be available Nov. 16 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC (via Battle.net and Steam), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

To help you make sense of all the other announcements that Activision made during the event, here are the big announcements from Call of Duty Next.

Warzone 2.0 is a massive new sequel to Call of Duty’s tremendously popular battle royale shooter. Warzone 2.0 will take place on an entirely new map called Al Mazrah that combines desert combat with sprawling cities. Along with dozens of new areas and points of interest to explore, Al Mazrah will also include a new version of Warzone’s Gulag, which will require players to fight their way out in 2v2 matches. The new Gulag includes a few new mechanics, like a prowling warden and weapons scattered around the map.

The game also introduces a new twist on the battle royale formula with multiple circles across the map that will segregate groups of players before eventually pulling them all back together for a few climactic fights.

As with the original game, Warzone 2.0 will also include all of the weapons from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which will be released on Oct. 26, and the two games will feature cross-progression. The game will also feature a new mode called DMZ, which will task players with entering the battlefield, then extracting with whatever gear they can.

During the Next presentation, Infinity Ward revealed new information on Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer mode, and how it differs from previous Call of Duty entries.

One of Modern Warfare 2’s standout new features is the Loadout 2.0 system, which builds on Infinity Ward’s weapon customization from 2019’s Modern Warfare by giving players more ways to customize their weapon, grouping the arsenal together based on their weapon platform. This system will also be part of Warzone 2.0, giving players more options for customizing their gear.

Modern Warfare 2 will also update Call of Duty’s multiplayer formula in a variety of ways, with refined sprinting, swimming, and mantling. The game also includes some larger additions like third-person multiplayer playlists, the return of the cooperative Spec Ops mode, and AI players on certain extra-large maps and modes.

Infinity Ward also mentioned a new mode called Raids, but didn’t go into detail on it during the presentation.

We already knew that Modern Warfare 2 had a beta on the way, but during Call of Duty Next, Infinity Ward let players know some of the features that they could expect from the game’s brief testing period.

Along with the game’s regular six-versus-six mode, the beta will also include the Ground War mode, which will pit two teams of 32 players each against each other and take place inside some of Warzone 2.0’s points of interest. The beta includes the Sarrif Bay Ground War map, and three core multiplayer maps: Valderas Museum, Farm 18, and Mercado Las Almas.

The beta will also include some of Modern Warfare 2’s new tactical modes like Knockout and Prisoner rescue which give teams limited respawns. There’s also a new mode called Invasion where 32-player teams face-off against each other in a deathmatch, along with numerous AI combatants.

The Modern Warfare 2 beta begins on Sept. 16 for PlayStation players who pre-ordered the game and will roll out to other platforms later, including Xbox and PC on Sept. 22.