Call of Duty Warzone: Season 4 debuted its reveal trailer as part of the Summer Game Fest today, which itself kicks off the E3 2021 schedule with a full week of announcements, updates, and reveals. The new gameplay trailer was short, but tantalising, offering some blink-and-you'll-miss-it looks at the latest updates coming to Warzone as part of Raven Software's live service curation.
As always, you can expect new operators, weapons, cosmetics, and more when season 4 lands in both Call of Duty: Warzone and Black Ops Cold War next week, but there's a few things you may have missed before Summer Games Fest quickly moved onto the next world premiere. Below, we've outlined five key takeaways from the Call of Duty Warzone season 4 trailer to get you prepared for launch.
It's launching next Thursday
We haven't always had the clearest of pictures when it comes to release dates for new seasons of Warzone; sometimes they launch on time, sometimes they get delayed at the last minute.
Thankfully, Activision came out and confirmed that Call of Duty Warzone season 4 will be launching next Thursday, June 17, meaning you have just one week left to level up your season 3 battle pass before all of its treasures are gone forever. Time to start redeeming those double XP tokens...
Hijacked is here
There's a little bit of mystery around how Hijacked is being implemented into Call of Duty season 4. We know that it'll be one of the new maps hitting Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but what's less clear is whether it may or may not show up in Verdansk itself.
Johanna Faries, GM of Call of Duty, seemed to suggest it might be a new point of interest in Verdansk, but that wasn't confirmed outright by the trailer itself. There's also the chance the fan-favourite Black Ops 2 map will be the basis for season 4's new Gulag (more on that in a sec) but, either way, expect to see plenty of seafaring action in Call of Duty from next Thursday onwards.
Satellites are crashing into Verdansk
It looks like the next phase in the plans of Call of Duty arch-villain Stitch involves forcing satellites to fall out of the sky and crash-land in Verdansk, creating a number of new points of interest across the map. One of those areas is right bang in the centre, where a satellite has crashed into the bridge between Hospital and Downtown, throwing debris all over the place.
The other new POI appears to be just outside of Farmland, where – yep, you guessed it – another satellite has hit the ground with a bang. We're going to hazard a guess, and suggest Raven Software is going to push players towards these locations as part of a new limited-time event or contract, but we'll have to wait and see for the season's full roadmap to be revealed before we find out the full details.
Motorbikes are ready to ride
Warzone has had a rough relationship with vehicles so far, with existing automobiles like Big Bertha encouraging unhealthy developments in meta, and new additions like the combat helicopter often breaking the game entirely. That's what makes the arrival of motorbikes an intriguing prospect, but we're keen to see how they might change up the pace and flow of action across Verdansk.
Could they become a more viable alternative to the ATV, more capable of worming through buildings for some of those extra satisfying indoors roadkills? There's every chance, of course, that the bikes get removed a few days into season 4 following the discovery of a server-breaking glitch. Fingers crossed that's not the case...
Gulag's getting an upgrade
We got a glimpse of the new Gulag in the season 4 trailer, and while it doesn't look like a revolutionary change, the negative reactions to Verdansk 84's new Gulag means even the smallest of revisions are welcome at this point.
It looks like Raven has removed all previous forms of vertical design for Gulag 3.0 (phew!), keeping things nice and simple both for those on the ground, and their teammates trying to spot them. Here's hoping this Gulag is here to stay, and not just a temporary replacement for Verdansk 84's oft-frustrating alternative.
For more, check out our breakdown of the Battlefield 2042 Specialists, or watch our review of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart below.
