Black Ops Cold War Zombies Outbreak gets a main quest and other updates next week

Black Ops Cold War Zombies Outbreak
(Image credit: Activision)

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Zombies is getting its first Main Quest, mode-specific weapon tuning, and - somehow - fishing next week.

Developer Treyarch revealed its plans for Zombies' big mid-season update in a new post on its official blog. The update is set to roll out on Thursday, May 20 and its biggest pieces of new content are aimed at the open-world Outbreak mode, though the developers are teasing it's all leading up to the next round-based Zombies map which is set to arrive during Black Ops Cold War Season 4.

Here's the full list of new content that Treyarch is teasing across all three of Zombies' submodes.

Outbreak

  • New Main Quest
  • Orda Encounter World Event
  • Fishing (!!)
  • New Intel Documents, Audio Logs, Radio Transmissions, and Artifacts to discover

Round-Based Maps

  • "Cranked 2: No Time to Crank" limited-time mode in "Firebase Z" and "Die Maschine"

Dead Ops Arcade 3

  • New Silverback Slideways bonus map

Onslaught (PlayStation)

  • Onslaught Standoff map + new Intel
  • "Lotto Loadouts" limited-time mode
  • New challenge with exclusive Weapon Blueprint reward

The new Zombies-specific weapon balancing changes are meant to give all weapons "competitive, balanced attributes." Treyarch says most weapons will be buffed, typically with much stronger critical damage multipliers, and some will get higher power ceilings. While it isn't ready to add a much-requested challenge tracker to the pause screen yet, Treyarch did say it's working on one - and also on displaying all your Daily Challenges at the start of a match, so you always know what to aim for.

Treyarch added that fans' reactions to Outbreak mode has been "incredible" and its player count is now "virtually neck-and-neck with round-based map players."

There's a good chance you'll be able to start slaughtering zombies as John Rambo next week, too.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.