We finally have a proper description on how XP progression is going to happen from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 1 onwards. Following Activision’s gambit in unifying three distinct games – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and their battle royale component, Call of Duty: Warzone – under one umbrella, so does the XP leveling up, Battle Pass, weapon XP and in-game progressions.

As explained by well renown source of all CoD related news, Charlie Intel via Twitter, players are given a variety of ways to earn XP and rank up. Starting December 16 when Season 1 kicks off for Cold War, those who currently own Modern Warfare and still have not jumped into this year’s CoD game can still rank up their Battle Pass even though they are not playing the Cold War core multiplayer games. In their own words;

They also cleared the air on the weapon XP progressions. Recently, Activision announced the move to make all Cold War AND Modern Warfare weapons usable in Warzone. Weapon XP earned only goes to the game the weapons originate from. So for instance, if you do not own Cold War, but picked up a Cold War-type AUG, you will not gain any weapon XP. Activision haven’t clarified whether you’ll be able to redeem these XP later, once you install the game though. But since Activision have a running system which tracks players’ progressions and records across games, our bet is that whatever XP earned will only be reflected for those who own the specific game they are attributed to.

Speaking of Season 1 for Cold War, Activision also released an official reveal of the upcoming season, featuring a smaller, more dense battle royale map called Rebirth Island, new multiplayer maps – one which resembles the interior of the KGB headquarters as seen in the story mode, new scorestreaks, weapons, and operators such as Stitch, Bulldozer and Zeyna. Also worth pointing out is the new gulag which is better lit, less dingy and appears to be set inside a warehouse.

Breaking: Watch the #BlackOpsColdWar & #Warzone Season One Trailer now! pic.twitter.com/5x7jt5FB2H

— Call of Duty News (@charlieINTEL) December 11, 2020

And yes. Warzone is still free to play.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 1 starts December 16th.