Modern Warfare 4 Season 1 lands November 6 with three new maps, Grind and Drop Zone, DMZ's X01 facility and two Warzone maps

Season 1 has a date. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s first free content update goes live on November 6, Activision’s Daniel Noel wrote on PlayStation.Blog.

Multiplayer. Three maps arrive at launch: the new Backstab, a war-torn map with bad weather and abandoned tanks; the new Canyon, with a river route near a Convoy Ambush and a winding Cliff Path; and a reimagined Shoot House set in snowy North Korea. Two modes come back too: Grind, where you bank enemy dog tags to score, and Drop Zone, where teams fight over a rotating objective that gets killstreak care packages. Mid-season adds the Ministry and Overflow maps and a new Counter Attack mode, where you try to blow up the enemy Comm Station while defending yours.

DMZ. The new location is X01, a weapons facility full of tunnels and shifting hazards. Activision says its extraction points close off as things go on, so you’ll have to finish the required steps to get out. There are also new DMZ Orders, Threat Briefings against the mode’s biggest bosses, and Resupply Runs.

Warzone. Season 1 brings two maps, Hajin and Zodiac, with a full Warzone roadmap still to come.

Weapons and battle pass. The Season 1 battle pass adds the Cronen Osprey assault rifle and the CSG-35 SMG, which Activision says has the highest fire rate in its class. The pass is now a linear 100-tier track with more than 100 items, and a new catch-up system automatically grants premium rewards up to the current day of the season, capped at day 50, so buying in late doesn’t cost you the early tiers.

PPR take: The catch-up system is the quiet win here. Nobody likes paying for a battle pass halfway through and staring at 40 tiers of grinding.