Call of Duty · Chapter G · 2020–today · Live service · 1 min read
Warzone, DMZ and the Live-Service Era
Three different products that summaries keep merging: a battle royale, an extraction mode, and the platform era that holds them.
In this Vault
- Chapter A — 2003: The Franchise Starts in World War II
- Chapter B — The Modern Warfare Revolution
- Chapter C — Black Ops: Eras, Themes and Continuity
- Chapter D — The Zombies Evolution
- Chapter E — Multiplayer Through the Generations
- Chapter F — The Weapons and Iconic Maps
- Chapter G — Warzone, DMZ and the Live-Service Era
- Chapter H — The Studios, Esports, Controversies and the Machine
- Chapter I — MW4: The Launch Briefing
Warzone (2020) made Call of Duty free-to-play at battle-royale scale and turned Verdansk into a shared cultural map. It is a battle royale. DMZ, which debuted in Modern Warfare II (2022), is a different product with different rules: an extraction mode where the objective is to get in, complete contracts, and get out alive with what you found.
MW4 rebuilds DMZ in the Hajin Exclusion Zone; eligible digital pre-orders played it early from October 20, three days before today's full launch. Warzone remains its own ongoing platform line alongside Call of Duty: Mobile (2019) — the franchise's other persistent world.
This Vault keeps the three lines separate in the timeline and the catalog: Warzone, DMZ and Mobile each have their own record, because treating them as one 'live service' blur is how wrong facts get published.
Sources
- Activision MW4 launch record (Vault mw4-launch data, verified)
- Previously Vault timeline record