Over the span of this week, Activision has been churning out more and more Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 details specifically around the DMZ mode in the upcoming release later this month. As a conclusion to the week, today, they have also announced that there will be an early access period to DMZ for anyone who pre-orders Modern Warfare 4. Five videos and two giant blog posts over the span of 7 days leaves you with more info than you could ever want. I’ll go over some of the highlights, but first… I’m sure that there are some who might either need a refresher or just general information on what DMZ actually even is.
If you’re unfamiliar, or even just a little rusty, DMZ is Call of Duty’s take on the extraction shooter genre. Captured in it’s own little vacuum in the greater Call of Duty sphere, DMZ offers a different experience altogether from what you’ll find in titles from the other developers’ lead games or the even other extraction shooters out there. The formula is pretty simple: drop in with nothing (or at least, very little), find anything you can, and take it with you. Manage to escape with items and you’ll sell off the valuables and keep any weapons you find. Next run, you can either take the same weapons back in with you or choose to bank one to save for later. Excess items are turned to resources, resources give upgrades, upgrades make you stronger, being stronger gets you more stuff, more stuff gets you more resources… you see where this is going.
Of course, the risk comes with the territory: DMZ isn’t a cooperative experience. You only get better by surviving, and you’re going to be trying to survive against other players who are just as interested in making it out as you are, but also see you as a walking loot bag. However, world events and npc enemies help add complications to this mix, as you can’t always just foolheartedly dedicate yourself to just decimating every other player you see. Sometimes those other players can be useful, and working together can get you both rewards, or… at least that’s what you say to get them to help. If you can live with being a monster, there’s always the option of blowing them away after they help and taking all the rewards for yourself. The general gameplay loop revolves around these things: Go in, get your stuff, get out. Social tensions keep things interesting among a myriad of activities going on around you.
So for what we’ve been shown this week; as I mentioned earlier, we’ve been given not one, but two separate extremely lengthy blog posts full of information on DMZ. If you purely want a giant dump with more than you could ever want to read, make sure to check those out. However, I am going to just run through and give you some of the highlights:
First and foremost: the FOB. This time around, DMZ is taking a note out of Tarkov’s page and giving you a home base that you need to work on upgrading as you gain more and more. The FOB is where you are whenever you are NOT inside of the DMZ. Inside the FOB, there are a variety of stations for you to interact, mostly tied into various progression systems. The Operators station allows you to manage your character roster, allowing you to swap between various operators to upgrade traits and check their status. The Stash allows you to store items between runs to bank for you to bring in later (or just gear fear yourself into never using them. Experienced extraction shooter players know). A firing range of course, but also a survival kit station where you will open themed packs of loot to gear up with more randomized items. Finally, the DMZ Orders station will be where you visit to get your missions and give you a sense of direction and purpose on your runs rather than just running around blindly.
Once you’ve played enough, you’ll find your FOB growing; a 3D printer will become your best friend after it’s unlocked. Allowing you to craft all sorts of gear, you’ll bring your looted items here to be essentially melted down and repurposed into something much more interesting. Expanding further, you’ll find your own personal gunsmith, where you can use the cash and materials you’ve gained from your luck in the DMZ to purchase attachments for your existing guns or make new ones entirely after you lose it all. Don’t have the materials you need? Don’t worry, the Vendor will have you covered once they’re invited in. A daily rotating inventory helps keep things interesting and varied. The last few stations you’ll find are small, but help upkeep the interesting variety: The boss board lets you buy intel on stronger enemies, the dog tag case lets you see all the enemy players you’ve killed, and the progression board lets you keep track of your progress on all of the above as well as being the source of all of the unlockable stations mentioned in this paragraph.
The DMZ itself takes place in Hajin, an exclusion zone on the Korean peninsula that features varied landscape and terrain that covers everything from rural and urban areas, industrial zones, hazardous facilities, and every extraction shooter player’s most reliable cover: trees, lots of trees. You can check out a general overview of the map with their image here:
The blog post goes into great detail about each of the locations listed in the legend, so if you want to be prepared, make sure to scroll down to the “Hajin Map Locations” header about ¾ of the way down the first blog post.
DMZ will feature its own isolated progression, with operator levels that also give unique benefits for prestige within it. Prestige comes with many upgrades to systems within the DMZ, but to keep it a bit simpler, I’m just going to let you read their own words on this one:
After Prestiging, you earn Trait Tree Points over again as before. If your Active Duty Operator reaches maximum level again (18 Trait Tree Points) you can Prestige for a second time.
The requirements increase depending on the Operator Prestige level:
DMZ First Prestige:
- Two Weapons with three Attachment Slots.
- One Plate Carrier (Rare Rarity)
- One Backpack (Rare Rarity)
- Four 3D Printer Ingredients (Rare Rarity)
- 200,000 DMZ Cash
DMZ Second Prestige:
- Two Weapons with four Attachment Slots.
- One Plate Carrier (Epic Rarity)
- One Backpack (Epic Rarity)
- Four 3D Printer Ingredients (Epic Rarity)
- 300,000 DMZ Cash
DMZ Third Prestige (and every Prestige thereafter):
- Two Weapons with four Attachment Slots.
- One Plate Carrier (Legendary Rarity)
- One Backpack (Legendary Rarity)
- Four 3D Printer Ingredients (Legendary Rarity)
- 500,000 DMZ Cash
Each time you Prestige, you receive an additional, random Permanent Prestige Trait.
Your Operator can have a maximum of three Permanent Prestige Traits.
Beyond Prestige Level 3
Once you’ve received your third Permanent Prestige Trait, the third set of prestige requirements remain in place for every subsequent Prestige.
You can continue to Prestige almost indefinitely. However, instead of receiving a new Prestige Trait […] You receive another Permanent Trait, different from the three you already have. Discard one of your three existing Permanent Traits, and replace it with the one you received. Or, keep all three of your current Permanent Traits and discard the newly offered one.
When you deploy, you are given multiple methods and options. First of all, you’ll have to decide if you’re deploying through dynamic ops or free roam. Dynamic Ops, from what I understand, encompasses both “story missions” and general objectives. Free roam simply drops you into the world with no particular objectives in mind, to loot and extract for material gains. Either way you go, the major deciding factor that you have to choose is this: how much, if any money are you going to give for whatever degree of upper hand you can get? For a mere 5,000 DMZ Cash, you can get a light armored vehicle dropped with you on deployment. Scale it up a bit and pay 25,000 for the heavy armored vehicle, 50,000 for a helicopter deployment that you get to keep on the mission or go all-in and slam 100,000 down for a precise deployment via cargo plane air drop. Or… cheap out and get a random spot on foot and walk yourself around and enjoy the scenery; it’s your choice.
No matter what you choose, you and your friends still have to survive til the end, and no matter what you brought in with you, remember: no matter how good you are, no matter how good your gear is… to someone, you are just an upgrade station with legs. So be on the lookout, and accept that whether you like it or not, at some point you will be losing it all. But that’s okay… you’re not the only walking upgrade station. There are plenty of others out there for you to roll over and hoover up goodies from. They took what you had, now it’s your turn to take theirs.
Pre-order Modern Warfare 4 today and you can get in on the early access period and enjoy DMZ with everyone else before launch day. DMZ’s early access starts October 20, three days before the full release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. If you want to get some visuals for some of what I’ve written about above, make sure to head over to the Call of Duty YouTube channel or check out the playlist below, where you can watch any of their past seven videos, all of which are on DMZ.
