The Haunting of Verdansk will bring The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saw villains into the game alongside spooky new game modes and more in Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
Set to launch on October 20 and run through November 3, The Haunting of Verdansk is a new update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone’s Season Six that brings Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saw bundles into the game. This Halloween-themed event will also feature a new “Trick or Treat” reward system and new Halloween-themed game modes. You can check out a trailer of what to expect below.
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“This Halloween-themed event will feature the ‘Trick or Treat’ reward system, where special Supply Boxes may either contain frights or frighteningly good blueprints and personalization items,” a blog post about the update reads.
“Come prepared for infiltrations at day or night, as select modes feature a nighttime variant of Verdansk that includes more than a few Halloween-themed frights. Rather spend the night fighting both the living and the dead? Then prepare for Zombie Royale, an undead twist on Battle Royale where dead operators use unnatural powers to feast on the living in order to rejoin their ranks.”
When the event begins, players can purchase bundles based on Saw and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Saw bundle gives you the Billy skin for Morte, the Phlebotomozier Lethal Equipment piece, which is a special throwing knife that drills into enemies upon impact, and two Saw-themed weapons: an assault rifle and a shotgun. You’ll also receive a Cargo Truck skin, a tricycle Charm, and four other pieces of personalization content.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre bundle includes the Leatherface skin for Velikan and the Family Heirloom LMG blueprint, which comes with a unique stock attachment that allows Leatherface to wield a chainsaw. You’ll also receive the “Anybody Home?” melee blueprint that turns your secondary into a one-handed hammer, an SMG blueprint weapon, a vehicle horn, and five other pieces of personalization content.
Other operators will get Halloween-themed skins as well, like the Dr. Karlov skin found in the Dr. Karlov Lives bundle that includes a new skin for Bale, two high-voltage weapon blueprints, an electric throwing knife, a vehicle skin, and other cosmetic items. Throughout this event, Activision says that other spooky bundles will appear in the store like the Ghost: Grim Reaper bundle and the Mace: Dia de Los Muertos bundle.
This update will also include a new weapon: the JAK-12 Shotgun. This a fully-automatic shotgun that has a faster fire rate than any other weapon in its category, according to Activision, and it includes unique attachments like the 8-Round FRAG-12 Mags and the 32-Round Drum Mags. This shotgun can be unlocked via the in-game challenge or as a blueprint variant acquired by purchasing the “Lacedaemon” store bundle.
On the Warzone side of things, there will be a limited-time Trick or Treat event, where zombies will infiltrate Verdansk in a new dark version of the map that sees it illuminated only by the Moon. Players can expect to see Billy on screens throughout the map and they might run into Leatherface in the Krovnik Farmland section of Verdansk.
In the Trick or Treat event, there will be special Trick or Treat supply boxes in Verdansk that, upon opening, could reward players with universal rewards like the “Return to Dust” assault rifle blueprint or “The Cleaver” legendary melee blueprint. A holographic watch, charms, stickers, sprays, calling cards, and emblems can be found in these boxes as well. The boxes might also include a more sinister trick, although Activision didn’t detail what this could mean.
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Players that collect all 16 rewards in the Trick or Treat boxes will receive the “Pumpkin Punisher" legendary assault rifle blueprint.
If you’re looking for more zombie action in Verdansk, The Haunting of Verdansk includes a new Zombie Royale mode that sees dead operators come back to life as zombies instead of being sent to the gulag. Zombies have increased speed, improved jumps, powerful melee attacks, and thermal vision, but they can’t use weapons. When a player is killed, they’ll drop a syringe. If a zombie collects two syringes, they’ll be dropped back onto the map as their operator for another chance at survival.
On the Modern Warfare side of things, all of the multiplayer’s game modes will be Halloween-themed. For example, operators that get three kills in a single life will see their head turned into a jack-o-lantern. Other spooky changes include skulls instead of dog tags in Kill Confirmed and scarecrows at each Domination point instead of the standard flags.
Two new multiplayer modes are included with this update as well: Onslaughter and Snipers Only. In Onslaughter, squads must “wrest control of a Juggernaut suit that spawns somewhere on the map and advance into a specific goal area.” In Snipers Only, players will only be able to use five pre-built sniper loadouts in standard Team Deathmatch rounds.
You can read even more about The Haunting of Verdansk in Activision’s blog post detailing the update. For more of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone’s sixth season, be sure to check out the Season Six cinematic trailer and then read about Warzone’s new fast travel system.
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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.