Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Pushes Back Season One Launch and Warzone Debut

Delays are more common than ever in 2020, but at least players on the newest Call of Duty have plenty to keep them occupied already. Black Ops Cold War was originally set to launch its first season of content and forge a bond with Warzone's free-to-play battle royale next week, but now folks will need to wait just a tad longer.

Instead of launching on Thursday, Dec. 10, Season One of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and its corresponding Warzone update will now launch just shy of a week later on Wednesday, Dec. 16. Battle Pass and premium goodies aside, the dual update promises to be a whopper: Activision says Season One is the "largest free content drop" for any Black Ops game to date.

That might be true in terms of volume, but time will tell if this launch will push any Blackout hold-outs to embrace Warzone or if it can distract Nuketown 24/7 players long enough to break their habit. For Cold War itself, players can expect new multiplayer maps (including the return of Raid from Black Ops 2), added modes like 2v2 Gunfight, a new Fireteam map, "free-to-acquire" weapons, and some new Zombies mode content.

Warzone, which will remain free-to-play separate from either Black Ops Cold War or last year's Modern Warfare reboot, may be getting the more impactful update of the two. Verdansk may never die, but a new map will be coming to Warzone in its place. On top of that, a new mode and dozens of guns plucked from the Black Ops arsenal will expand what's already a sprawling mishmash of guns, armor, and ammo.

Treyarch and company haven't given an explicit reason for the short delay, but it may be the case that this bounty of content simply needed a bit more polish. Then again, it might also be a subtle recognition that an even larger release recently got pushed to Dec. 10 and could overshadow... well, just about anything else happening that day. Either way, it won't be that long until the update drops, so be sure to take one last look around Verdansk as you know it before that happens.