Call of Duty’s New DMZ Mode Is Coming Straight for ARC Raiders

Call of Duty is taking another serious swing at extraction shooters, and this time Activision appears to be treating DMZ as far more than a side experiment.

Modern Warfare 4’s version of DMZ drops players into Hajin, a persistent open-world combat zone where squads loot, complete objectives, fight difficult AI enemies and rival Operators, and then try to extract with whatever they managed to collect. Activision itself is calling it Call of Duty’s “definitive extraction shooter experience.”

Infinity Ward multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot says the team has been actively watching the extraction-shooter genre, playing “every different extraction shooter that comes out” to see what players respond to and what doesn’t work. He also said the studio has spent the past three-plus years following what other games in the genre are doing while rebuilding DMZ. This includes games like Escape from Tarkov, and most notably, ARC Raiders.

That puts it squarely in the same space as ARC Raiders, which has been reigning as the king of the extraction shooter genre since its launch back in October 2025, even if the two go about it differently.

ARC Raiders has become one of the clearest recent examples of that formula working at scale, and while Cecot doesn’t single it out by name, Infinity Ward is clearly designing this version of DMZ in a market that ARC Raiders has helped define.

Embark’s extraction shooter mixes PvE enemies with rival players, persistent loot and has basically set the successful blueprint for modern extraction shooters. The biggest between the two games would be their atmosphere and tone. ARC Raiders leans into slower scavenging and unpredictable player encounters, while DMZ is built around Call of Duty’s faster gunplay and heavier objective structure.

DMZ revolves around Hajin’s Exclusion Zone and a persistent progression system built around a Forward Operating Base or FOB for short. Between deployments, players can upgrade that base, unlock new stations, manage gear, craft equipment and prepare for future runs. There are 12 stations in total, with progression tied to DMZ cash and a separate rank that goes up to level 70.

Once deployed, the structure should feel familiar to anyone who has spent time with ARC Raiders or Escape from Tarkov. You enter with gear, explore points of interest, take on objectives, fight both AI and other players, collect valuables and eventually decide whether pushing your luck is worth the risk of losing everything.

Modern Warfare 4 also adds Side Ops, Dynamic Operations and DMZ Orders, which provide objectives and longer-term progression during runs. Activision says the Hajin map contains hidden underground areas, changing threats, vehicles and secrets to uncover, while seasonal updates are expected to add new bosses and areas over time.

DMZ technically first appeared back in Modern Warfare 2, but this new version drops the old beta label and is being positioned as one of Modern Warfare 4’s major pillars rather than an experimental Warzone offshoot.

Whether it can pull players away from ARC Raiders remains to be seen, but Call of Duty is very clearly coming back for a proper fight in the extraction-shooter space.