Call of Duty: DMZ (Modern Warfare 4)

DMZ returns as the extraction mode inside Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, built again by Infinity Ward, the studio that made the original DMZ in Warzone 2.0. Players call it DMZ 2, though ActivisionPublisherActivisionActivision is the publisher of the Call of Duty franchise. Since 2021 the Call of Duty competitive experience has been protected by RICOCHET, Activision's in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat.5 games in this family →'s name for it is simply DMZ. Revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, 2026, it deploys squads into Hajin, an exclusion zone set in a tri-point region bordering Russia and the Korean peninsula, spanning three landmasses and nine regions, from an irradiated reactor to a prison complex to Hajin City. As many as twenty squads of three, around sixty players, share the same map in a single operation, running story missions and dynamic operations, gathering loot, and racing to exfil while enemy factions, roaming patrols, and rival squads make no two runs the same. New this time are a dynamic weather system and a persistent FOB, a forward base that squads upgrade and stage from between deployments.

DMZ 2 is not a free download: it comes with the paid Modern Warfare 4, releasing October 23, 2026, so entering the new Hajin means buying the base game. On PC it runs on the Modern Warfare 4 client with RICOCHETAnti-cheatActivision RICOCHETRICOCHET is Activision's in-house kernel-mode anti-cheat, deployed across the Call of Duty franchise since 2021. The kernel driver loads while a protected Call of Duty title is running.5 games in this family →'s kernel anti-cheat, so its system footprint is the base game's, not a separate one. If you loved the first DMZ for its unscripted standoffs and the weight of losing what you carried in, the features to watch before launch are the ones that shape those moments: the bounty board, the persistent FOB, and how the sequel handles the cheating that hurt the original most. Activision's DMZ deep dive and its intel hub, both linked below, are the sources to track as the picture firms up.

DMZ is a mode inside Modern Warfare 4, not a separate install, so it carries exactly the base game's trust ask. On PC that means RICOCHET, Activision's kernel-mode anti-cheat, loads with the game and unloads when it closes; there is no separate DMZ anti-cheat layer. The broader picture lives under the ricochet anti-cheat family entry. Because Modern Warfare 4 has not shipped yet, the mode's exact Windows process names are not observed here, and this plate will gain them once Vera sees the released client.

The first DMZ is unusually well documented because it ended in the open: Activision froze it in December 2023, and across its run players and reporters recorded a cheating problem the mode's stakes made especially cruel, including server-crash exploits RICOCHET never fully contained. Vera's own account of what that cost the people who loved it is the blog post The Ghost of Al Mazrah, linked below. Whether the sequel answers that history is the open question, and it is the reason RICOCHET's posture in Modern Warfare 4 is worth following closely rather than assumed. As with any unreleased title, treat pre-launch feature claims as subject to change until the game is in players' hands.