Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Warzone developers have revealed the full slate of what’s coming soon to both games, in the mid-season update for Season 4. This arrives Thursday, 25th June across PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and it’s free to all players.
There’s a nice assortment of maps for multiplayer and Zombies, and there are returning game modes, a new weapon, new attachments, a summery visual overhaul of a battle royale map, updates to Endgame and more.
But the most eye-catching addition is the new operator for – I’m just checking if it’s real again – actor Nicolas Cage. This isn’t based on any particular character from the thespian’s storied career; – rather, it’s the actor simply playing himself. Cue Nicolas Cage finger-guns.
Cage arrives alongside a new event pass, which is a shorter, limited-time battle pass, and it offers a series of challenges that award you with various cosmetic and gameplay rewards. The pass has free and paid tracks, and Mr Cage is, of course, locked to the premium one. There’s also a red leather jacket skin for him, which we sadly don’t see in the trailer. This is all included in the Summer of Action campaign, which also has its own daily login event.
Black Ops 7’s post-campaign, open-world world mode Endgame remains free to play until the end of Season 5, but a more feature-rich free trial of the full game is also starting soon. Activision hasn’t said when but it’s likely to begin alongside the update’s launch or shortly thereafter. It will include access to multiplayer as well as Zombies.
This isn’t actually the first time Nicolas Cage has featured in a video game. The actor debuted as a playable survivor in asymmetrical multiplayer survival horror game Dead by Daylight in 2023. There he also plays himself – who needs a character when your fame outranks them?
This may be the last of this type of silly celebrity skin we see in mainline Call of Duty for a while, though. Since Modern Warfare 4 has been revealed, Activision and developer Infinity Ward have stressed that post-launch content won’t include the cartoony or celebrity collaboration skins which have become a staple of the series over the past several years, and have equally garnered criticism from many players. “No Lady Gaga. No Omni-Man. No Teletubbies. No SpongeBob. Keep the receipts,” the developer said at time. Cosmetics will “need to feel authentic to what Modern Warfare is”.
Modern Warfare 4 is scheduled for release on 23rd October on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Switch 2. The Nicolas Cage skin will not carry over.
