Everything in the Warzone Festive Fervor event

Warzone festive fervor
(Image credit: Activision)

The Call of Duty Warzone Festive Fervor event is out now, with tie-ins, game modes and extras to both Warzone and Vanguard, and a whole holiday-themed kind of carnage for players to enjoy. But exactly what is the Warzone Festive Fervor event, and how does it impact Call of Duty Warzone? We've put together this page on everything we know about the Warzone Festive Fervor event, including Krampus, Elves, and presents under Christmas trees.

Call of Duty Warzone Festive Fervor event explained

Warzone festive fervor

(Image credit: Activision)

The Call of Duty Warzone Festive Fervor event is a holiday celebration happening in Winter 2021, that comes with new game modes, bundles, additions to gameplay and more besides. Here's what's included in the Festive Fervor update:

Warzone Pacific Festive Fervor new gameplay and rewards

  • "Deck the Halls" Holiday Crates: These special crates have a high chance to hold "legendary items for that match, limited-time rewards, or even some coal for those Operators on the naughty list". You can get them to spawn by finding the Festive Fir Trees and standing close to them for a time.
  • "Elf and Seek" Hunting (New Challenge): There's a range of little Warzone Elves hidden in both Warzone maps that make noise when people are within ten meters of them. Destroying them will get you rewards, such as Double XP Tokens or Calling Cards.

Vanguard Festive Fervor new gameplay and rewards

  • "Elf Team Six" Hunting (New Challenge): Like in Warzone, there's little green elves hidden through the Vanguard maps, and killing them will add to your match score and give you killstreaks to help even the odds. 
  • "Festive Fervor" Armageddon (Limited-time mode): This limited-time mode is a returning game type that was known as Drop Zone in older Call of Duty games. In it, players have to control an area and grab the care packages that fall on them until they've collected enough. However, the points gained are still done through kills, with the packages giving advantages and killstreaks.
  • Shipment Map Holiday Reskin: Throughout the event, the Shipment map will become Shipmas, with added wrapping paper, trees and lights to give it that holiday look. We also hear that other Vanguard maps will be tweaked in smaller ways.
  • Free Gifts for Vanguard players: Those who own Vanguard or buy it before December 31st will get 10 Battle Pass Tier Skips, 10% added to Global Player, Weapon, and Battle Pass XP during Pacific Season One, and 24 Vanguard Tiers of the Season Six Battle Pass to get retroactively.

Vanguard and Warzone

  • Beware Krampus! (New Challenge): Warzone Krampus is an NPC monster that hunts players in both Vanguard Multiplayer and Warzone. In Vanguard, he prioritises certain targets - usually those who have the lowest score, but hunts those that have found coal in Warzone's Festive Fir Tree crates. He hunts a target for three minutes or until killed, whichever comes first.
  • Four new holiday bundles: There are several holiday-themed bundles with skins added to the store over the Winter, called Santa's Slay, Krampus Unleashed, Secret Santa and Broken Resolutions.
  • New Challenges and Rewards (stickers, charms, etc): Beyond all that, there are additional rewards and challenges.

When is the Warzone Festive Fervor start time?

Warzone festive fervor

(Image credit: Activision)

The Festive Fervor event has already started, though it's not clear yet when it'll stop. Raven Software have said that there'll be a "12 Festive Days of Deals" element which stops on Christmas Day, and there's further "holiday sales" that'll extend to January 5th - but when exactly the game modes and map changes end is still unknown.

Warzone Festive Fervor update size

Warzone festive fervor

(Image credit: Activision)

The Festive Fervor updates for Warzone and Vanguard are live now with all the changes and new features mentioned above. Each game has separate updates, and while we don't know the exact file sizes for all platforms and versions of the games... well, it's Call of Duty. You might need to make some room on your hard drive. The Warzone Festive Fervor update for Xbox Series X was about 10GB.

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Joel Franey
Guides Writer

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.