Free Zombies week comes to 'Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War'

Activision and Treyarch have announced that a free preview of the Zombies modes in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be accessible to all for a week, starting this Thursday (January 14).

Players will be able to download a stand-alone version of Cold War‘s Zombies component from Battle.net, Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. The various Zombies modes will be playable for free until January 21.

The free week includes access to the map “Die Maschine” which expands on the first Call of Duty Zombies map from 2008’s Call of Duty: World at War, but with players being able to reap the benefit of modern systems such as Score Streaks and Field Upgrades.

Also included in the free week is access to a new mode, Cranked. This new mode adds a twist by making it so that a timer starts when the first zombie appears in the game. Players will then need to kill Zombies to refill their timer, and will explode when it reaches zero.

Access to some modes will vary on different platforms. The Zombies Onslaught mode is currently exclusive to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players, and as such only they will be able to access it during this free week.

This free week will coincide with Black Ops Cold War’s mid season refresh. A blog post by Treyarch promises “massive new Fireteam map” called Sanatorium, and a new 6v6 MP mode named “Dropkick.”

The Call of Duty franchise recently faced criticism from players of Warzone who had received shadow bans without warning, placing them in a bracket with legitimate cheaters.