Call of Duty: Warzone’s Haunting of Verdansk Update is Surprisingly Scary
Warzone's Halloween update has surprised many players with its shocking scares.
On paper, Call of Duty: Warzone‘s Haunting of Verdansk update looked like a fun way to kill a little time before the release of Cold War and celebrate Halloween a little ahead of schedule (as if we weren’t already doing that).
However, it turns out that Warzone‘s new Zombies mode is actually the battle royale’s best event so far and a pretty fun tribute to the glory days of CoD‘s best Zombies modes.
As we previously talked about, Warzone‘s limited-time Zombies mode sees you drop into a relatively small part of the Verdansk map and battle other players as per usual. The twist is that you don’t go to the Gulag when you die; you become a zombie. If you manage to kill two human players while you’re a zombie, you’ll be resurrected with your loadout. The last player (or team) standing wins. It’s a relatively simple concept that proves to be much more than the sum of its parts due largely to the unique abilities of the zombies and how their surprising speed allows them to reach parts of the map that were previously considered to be “safe.”
While the intense action of Warzone‘s Halloween event is its biggest draw, that’s not all this event has to offer. Yes, as you probably could have guessed, this Halloween event also offers players the chance to unlock (via gameplay or, you know, spending money) various horror-themed cosmetics. The unlockables based on the Saw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises are the highlights of this update’s cosmetics collection, but you can actually access an array of new items simply by opening special “Trick ‘r Treat” supply boxes located within the Warzone map.
As developer Infinity Ward previously explained, though, those boxes could contain a surprise treat but they can just as easily feature a “Trick” in the form of a jump scare. While the studio pretty clearly explained that players should be on the lookout for these scares, it seems that not everybody read that part of the patch notes as players are being caught off-guard by these sudden scares:
Granted, some of those reactions are likely (very likely) exaggerated for content creation purposes, but it’s certainly understandable that players aren’t expecting any jump scares in Warzone, period. If that’s you, then just be aware that this mode is out to scare you through these crates and a few ghosts spread throughout the map who you tend to run into when you’re least expecting it.
So while we’re not in a hurry to add Warzone to our list of the scariest games ever made, we recommend that you check the Haunting of Verdansk event out if you’re looking for ways to celebrate Halloween while staying indoors.
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Matthew Byrd is Games Editor at Den of Geek and an entertainment enthusiast living in Brooklyn. When he's not exploring the culture of video games, he's…