Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was confirmed as the latest addition to the franchise on Aug. 7, 2023. With the rumors verified by an official announcement, fans’ questions started revealing more about their favorite game modes, like whether DMZ will be in MW3.
As a game mode, mostly resembling Escape from Tarkov, DMZ has been a huge success. Not only did CoD’s existing player base fall in love with the game mode but even veterans who have been out of the franchise returned to try out DMZ, with some sticking around to play more of it.
While the yearly installments have been keeping the core game fresh, DMZ has been pulling and retaining the numbers. But will it make a return with MW3?
Is DMZ in MW3?
No, DMZ won’t be coming to MW3 at all. In fact, Activision all but killed the game mode with an announcement back in November 2023, with the publisher confirming the mode won’t be receiving any more updates.
“Infinity Ward and all the development teams who contributed to the creation of DMZ are incredibly proud and delighted to see the enthusiasm and participation that you’ve shown since its release, and to see so many players pouring into the MWZ mode in MW3, which has many DMZ-inspired gameplay aspects within it,” Infinity Ward said, who worked on the game mode alongside MW2.
Instead, Sledgehammer Games worked with Treyarch to bring MW3 Zombies, a DMZ-like mode that sees you take on the undead instead of military bots to complete a wide range of missions before extracting. The one drawback that angered players early on was a lack of PvP—only the ability to team up with others around you.
It was originally believed that DMZ would continue to receive updates as per communication from Activision. However, November 2023’s update sees a bit of a backflip on this promise.
DMZ will continue to be a part of the new Call of Duty HQ as a single-app experience and is still available to play. But without new missions or content, once a player has “finished” DMZ, there really isn’t much more to do.
Was there a DMZ reset when MW3 was released?
No, there was no reset for DMZ upon the release of MW3. As mentioned above, the CoD team said it planned to continue to “support” the DMZ game mode, but after Activision’s official announcement in November, it’s simply a promise to keep the servers running.
There are currently no plans to continue developing or adding to the DMZ game mode.
