Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s Season 6 battle pass has come to an end – and there’s no sign of a Season 7.
Infinity Ward’s first-person shooter launched on 25th October 2019. Since then, it’s seen the launch of free-to-play battle royale Warzone, Treyarch and Raven’s Black Ops Cold War, and six seasons’ worth of new content and battle passes.
But it looks like the focus from Activision’s point of view is now squarely on Warzone and Black Ops Cold War. Modern Warfare players noticed this morning that the game’s current battle pass had expired with no replacement or playlist update from Infinity Ward.
Season 6 of #ModernWarfare and #Warzone is officially over.
The battle pass has been taken off of the menu screen. We still have no official word on a Season 7 or future content for Modern Warfare. pic.twitter.com/5RM067Yv1b
— ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) December 8, 2020
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This has come as a surprise to some who had hoped for more time to complete the battle pass ahead of the launch of Season One of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Warzone on 16th December.
“I don’t understand why they couldn’t let people complete it until the 16th update,” redditor nilxnoir said in a post on the Modern Warfare sub.
“Feels like they’ve just been trying to gut this game since Cold War came out. I understand old games lose support but killing it purposely is frustrating.”
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Rather than a Season 7 and a new battle pass, Modern Warfare is syncing up with Black Ops Cold War and Warzone for a new cross-game prestige system.
Prestige, a long-standing and popular method of keeping Call of Duty players interested for months on end by letting them restart progression and re-lock functional items over and over, was ditched for Modern Warfare in favour of an Officer Ranks system. This preserved your Enlisted Ranks of 1-55 so they were never reset, and functional items were never re-locked. Only your Officer Rank was reset, at the end of a season.
From 16th December, with the launch of Season One, Modern Warfare’s Enlisted Ranks will become known as Military Levels. As with Enlisted Ranks, Military Levels take you from level one to 55, and unlock functional gameplay items.
This progression is synced between all three games. The idea is you can level up and get XP no matter which game you play. Progress is obtained in the usual manner (playing multiplayer, completing challenges and Warzone matches, etc). Black Ops Cold War Zombies also shares this progression.
Your initial Military level will be reset within Modern Warfare and Warzone at the start of Black Ops Cold War Season One in order to sync player progression across all three games. This reset is synced to your current progression level in Black Ops Cold War when Season One kicks off. Only your XP is reset – everything you’ve previously unlocked, such as weapons, perks and killstreaks in Modern Warfare, for example, remains available.
When you complete the Military Levels, you get an updated and improved Seasonal Leveling that becomes synchronised with all three Call of Duty games (Modern Warfare, Warzone and Black Ops Cold War) at the beginning of Season One. This means you can level up in all three games no matter which you play.
Here’s where the Seasonal Prestige leveling kicks in. Your previous seasonal Officer Progression is now known as Seasonal Levels, which incorporates a Seasonal Prestige leveling system. This is fully synced between all three games. Leveling in Black Ops Cold War, Warzone or Modern Warfare all count toward your Seasonal Leveling and Prestige Level.
But, Activision said, the “preferred” way to Prestige is by playing Black Ops Cold War, thanks to challenges focused on Black Ops Cold War gameplay, XP events and other “advantages” planned throughout the Seasons. Clearly, Activision is trying to push COD fans towards Black Ops Cold War here. The publisher knows Prestige is a big deal for Call of Duty fans.
As for the battle pass that comes with the launch of Season One, you progress through it by playing any of the three games, and content you unlock is shown in-game, no matter which game you’re playing. What, exactly, this battle pass includes remains to be seen, but Activision has suggested it will not contain new content for use in Modern Warfare.
Which is a shame, because Modern Warfare has a lot of life left in it. After a year of patches and new multiplayer maps, Infinity Ward has got the game into a decent shape, and there appears to be a healthy cross-platform playerbase. Activision’s traditional annualised release schedule for Call of Duty has for many years now meant games tend to get left behind as new games come out, but the feeling this year is different, with many calling for longer-term support for Modern Warfare.
“I refuse to buy CW, I’m still having loads of fun with MW!” K1llsw1tch82 said.
