Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Pre-Order Bonus Adds DMZ Early Access

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has expanded its early access offerings to include DMZ for pre-order customers ahead of its release later this month.

Activision and Infinity Ward unveiled a slew of fresh details about the DMZ overhaul in a blog post today. The mode's early access now joins the campaign early access, both of which are available to those who pre-ordered either the standard or Vault Edition of the game on PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and/or Xbox Series X/S.

Here's the complete schedule: Eligible players can jump into the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 campaign early starting Friday, October 16. DMZ early access follows on Tuesday, October 20, and the full launch will unlock the rest of the experience on Friday, October 23. All these new details came alongside a fresh gameplay trailer for DMZ, which you can watch below.

DMZ originally debuted as Call of Duty's spin on the extraction shooter genre with 2022's Modern Warfare 2. It received updates in the following months but was ultimately considered an underwhelming prototype by many. Support ceased in late 2023, and now Activision is giving it another shot.

The DMZ in Modern Warfare 4 has been touted as a fully realized evolution of the mode. In today's post, Infinity Ward called this new version the series' "definitive extraction shooter experience," promising persistent progression in the open-world combat zone known as the Hajin Exclusion Zone.

"There's an interesting story with the DMZ beta, where we had to make some decisions," studio multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot said in a recent behind-the-scenes video (below). "Certain things we wanted to do, we couldn't do. At the end of the day, we learned a lot: That we made a very approachable, fun sandbox that was fun to fight in, to explore, to make friends in, to get into fights in. There's a bunch of stuff we left on the table, so as soon as we finished with the last game, we were just gung-ho on, 'OK, we know what we want to do.'"

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches October 23 for PC and consoles. Our first proper look at DMZ gameplay arrived in June, with even more details shared earlier this week. While early access players will get to dive into DMZ and the story mode a few days earlier than others, core multiplayer offerings won't officially launch until that firm release date hits. You can see how the team at Infinity Ward is working to deal with wall-hack cheaters here.