What is a Warzone special weapon and how to unlock the nail gun

warzone special weapons — (Image credit: Activision)

If you're asking what is a special weapon in Warzone then you want to complete challenges to unlock the Nail Gun. This new submachine gun type weapon arrived in Warzone season 4 and can only be unlocked in Call of Duty Warzone by completing a special weapon related challenge. Trouble is, special weapons are very much a Cold War thing, so if you're you're only playing Warzone, which doesn't have a dedicated special weapon class, then it's not really clear what you're meant to do...

What is a special weapon in Warzone?

In order to unlock the Nail Gun in Warzone you'll have to complete the following challenge in either Cold War or Warzone:

Get 5 eliminations with special weapons in 15 different matches.

Here's the thing: special weapons are a Cold War class. Up there in the image above you can see all the options in that game: the M79 grenade launcher, the new nail gun, the R1 Shadowhunter crossbow and the ballistic knife.

So, if you're playing Cold War it's easy: grab any one of the special weapons you have and kill everyone until you hit the five kills across 15 different matches. But what do you do if you've only got Warzone? Well, don't worry, the special weapons are still there, just tucked away in different sections.

Where are the special weapons in Warzone?

All of the Cold War Special Weapons appear in Warzone, it's just that the Warzone Special weapons are scattered about without any class or area of their own. Because of that you'll find them in the following places:

M79 grenade launcher - in the Marksman Rifle section
R1 Shadowhunter crossbow - in the Secondary Weapons sections
Ballistic knife - in the Melee section
Nail Gun - in the SMG section

You're best bet is to grab the launcher if you haven't already unlocked the R1 Shadowhunter or Ballistic knife, as they both have their own challenges to unlock:

R1 Shadowhunter unlock criteria - Using a weapons with no attachments, get 3 One Shot One Kill medals in 15 different matches.
Ballistic knife unlock criteria - Get a One Shot One Kill medal and a melee kill in the same match 15 times.

As you can see that's just doubling your work if those two aren't ready to use straight away. So save time and get popping with the grenade launcher if you really want that Nail Gun.

Elsewhere in the new season we've seen some big changes to the Warzone Roze skin which now has lighter panels on the outfit to finally nix the invisibility. Also on the good news front much of the weapon balancing taking place in the updates are all about increasing the Warzone TTK to make fighting more about skill and less about weapon choice. Although it's not all been good news with some Warzone update console reset issues seeing player preferences being reset in the menus.