Call of Duty (DMZ)

Play it on: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Windows (Steam Deck N/A)
Current goal: Unlock a second insured weapon (finally)

I’ve been snoozing a bit on Call of Duty’s free-to-play extraction mode, DMZ. And oh, how I’ve been missing out. With a brand-new map following season 4’s launch earlier this month, the game continues to expand in exciting ways. The latest map, Vondel, trades the long stretches of clear sightlines in the desertscape of Al Mazrah for a blanket of fog (much like NYC these days!) with obscured vision, forcing tighter combat sequences and making the thermal scope more useful than it’s ever been.

But Al Mazrah got some new features of its own, including sand storms and entrances to the underground network of tunnels known as Koschei Complex (extracting from which required me to hunt down night-vision goggles and engage in some dicey cat-and-mouse fights). DMZ just feels so much larger now, and given the freeform structure of how virtually anything can happen, the new features sometimes make it feel like a whole new game—especially if you’re like me and tuned out for most of the last season or so.

While I put a lot of time into the first two seasons, somehow I’ve yet to unlock a second insured weapon. Time to get to work acing a few missions so I can finally kit out a solid assault rifle to pair with my Victus sniper rifle. — Claire Jackson