Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War "free access" week will open multiplayer and Zombies to everyone next week

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will hold a "free access period" from Thursday, July 22 through July 29 to give all players a chance to sample its multiplayer and Zombies modes.

Activision slipped this event into its season 4 roadmap update, which outlined some of the content coming to the Call of Duty ecosystem of multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone in the weeks ahead. We don't have the exact start and end times just yet, but the publisher says more information will arrive next week ahead of the free trial. That will include download details as well, which will come in mighty handy given how each mode has become its own little garden.

This freebie period will feature "various multiplayer and Zombies experiences," Activision explained in a blog post, and this includes new content like Black Ops Cold War's new Rush map and the Mauer Der Toten Zombies map. And that's just the minimum based on what was confirmed today; more content will likely be available when the event actually kicks off. Any progress you make during this free trial period, in any game mode, will also carry over into the full game if you decide to buy it.

It's likely no coincidence that the free trial will arrive exactly one week after the big season 4 update on July 15. Among other things, this will introduce the Payload game type for the free-to-play Warzone, the Mauer Der Toten Zombies map, and a medley of maps, mods, guns, operators, and other rewards across the mainline multiplayer and beyond, with some crossover here and there. There's going to be a lot of stuff to try and activity across all game types will likely spike to some degree, which is always a good time to invite players in for a test-run. I'll probably cave in and give the new Zombies stuff a go, partly because I really want to meet the killer robot ally teased in the newest Mauer Der Toten trailer.