Warzone S3 Reloaded: Hot Pursuit, Spikes & Modes Guide

The Warzone Season 3 Reloaded patch notes also include Ranked Play adjustments, a full reset to Bronze for everyone, weapon balance changes, new Prestige Master challenges, and anti-cheat measures that don't actually arrive until Season 4. The Totenreich Zombies map and a RoboCop crossover event round out the content calendar, because apparently the future of warfare involves ED-209.

LTM Hot Pursuit: Black Ops Royale on Avalon

Hot Pursuit replaces the standard Black Ops Royale playlist for the duration of Season 3 Reloaded. It is a vehicle-focused, 100-player mode set on Avalon with Resurgence rules, meaning your squad respawns as long as one person is still breathing. The concept is a Cops vs. Thieves chase dynamic carried over from its original Blackout debut in 2019. Police have the heavy hardware: ATVs, JLTVs, Light Helis. Thieves get speed and maneuverability via UTVs and Dirt Bikes. The last squad standing wins. Standard Black Ops Royale is temporarily gone and the developers say it will return in a future update. How future that future is, nobody knows.

Note: Hot Pursuit is available in solo and quad playlists. If you queue into it expecting a standard BR experience, that is entirely on you.

LTM Prop Hunt Royale: Rebirth Island

The Prop Hunt Royale Rebirth Island mode scales up the classic hide-and-seek format to 24 players per team, which is either the best idea in years or a way to ensure complete server-side anarchy. The structure is round-based: teams alternate between Prop and Hunter roles each round, and the first to win 3 out of 5 rounds takes the match. Hunters must find and eliminate disguised players. Props must not move suspiciously, which is harder than it sounds when you are a barrel next to seventeen other barrels.

Spikes are purchasable combat stimulants added to Buy Stations in Season 3 Reloaded. Each match randomly stocks 2 of the 3 available Spikes at every Buy Station, with a purchase cap of 2 per station. You can stack multiple Spikes on one operator. You lose all of them when you die. This is not a design oversight.

The Warzone community will now spend the next three weeks arguing about whether Spikes are broken, while people who actually stack Armor Salvaging and Prone Firing quietly take every 1v3. Per the Warzone Season 3 Reloaded patch notes, all Spikes are lost on death, making them a calculated mid-to-late-game investment rather than an early loot priority. Plan accordingly, or do not. Your call.

The Warzone MK35 ISR nerf is the headline. The MK35 ISR assault rifle was the dominant gun of Season 3 and has been hit with damage range reductions across all modes, along with nerfs to attachment effectiveness including recoil control and bullet velocity. The Razor 9mm also gets trimmed: reduced damage, slower ADS, and increased recoil. On the other end, several weapons received buffs that will briefly make people try them before returning to whatever the new dominant option turns out to be.

Two new weapons Season 3 Reloaded also join the pool: the Siren special weapon and the Katana melee weapon for Black Ops 7. Conversion kit additions include the Lightframe PDW Conversion for the MK.78 LMG and the Badlands Pistol Kit for the Warden 300 marksman rifle.

Three new lethals and tacticals arrive for Warzone Black Ops 7 Season 3 Reloaded across Battle Royale and Resurgence modes. The EMP Grenade destroys equipment and disables field upgrades and killstreaks on detonation. The Cluster Grenade replaces Thermite and detonates on impact, then produces multiple secondary explosions: good for flushing squads out of cover. The Sensor Dart is a reconnaissance tool with mode-specific tuning.

The C4 also received notable adjustments: the middle-to-inner explosion radius grew from 3m to 5m, inner damage increased from 225 to 250, and middle explosion damage rose from 112 to 180. Proximity Mine inner explosion damage was trimmed from 275 to 250 to give opponents a slightly larger survival window. Crouch reduces mine damage by 50%; going prone reduces it by 75%. File that information somewhere useful.

Season 3 Reloaded resets all players to Bronze. Every single one. The developers describe this as providing equal footing for the climb back up. When Season 4 arrives, the standard soft-reset system returns. The second Warzone Ranked Play Season 3 Reloaded event runs with 50-player leaderboards, offering Emblem and Weapon Camo rewards for top placements across all ranks. Wins earn additional rewards: a new Weapon Charm and Large Decal. Fire Sale has been replaced by Restock in Ranked to reduce cash-stockpiling strategies and force more active mid-to-late game economy decisions.

• Top Placement defined as: Top 6 teams in Resurgence OR Top 15 teams in Battle Royale
• 20 top placements required before Ranked queue access
• Casual and Bootcamp do not count toward placement progress
• Elimination SR rewards now factor in skill gap between you and the eliminated player
• Bandolier and Ammo Satchel banned; launchers unrestricted; Alertness removed from restricted list

Starting Season 4: Microsoft Azure Attestation (MAA) will be required on PC to access most playlists. Players who fail attestation see restricted matchmaking and are not paired with console or verified PC players. Prepare now or enjoy your segregated lobby.

Verdansk Map Changes

The east wing of Train Station, previously sealed, is now open with additional loot opportunities and flanking routes. The Verdansk train is operational again and features a respawning Recon Contract. Vertical Ascenders have returned across Verdansk, matching their placement from Season 05 and the current Plunder layout. The Blaze Bucks event runs alongside these changes: collect currency from eliminated enemies and supply caches to redeem for the Vendetta Perk, the Frost Blast Field Upgrade, and the "Highly Decorated" Weapon Camo.

• Train Station east wing: open, new flanking routes, increased loot density
• Verdansk train: returns with respawning Recon Contract
• Vertical Ascenders: reintroduced at Season 05-era positions
• High Value Loot Zones for Season 3 Reloaded: Train Station, Superstore, Military Base
• Battle Royale Casual: Avalon and Verdansk now rotate every 10 minutes

Prestige Master Challenges

New Prestige Master challenges have been added to Warzone for players who apparently have nothing better to do than complete brutally specific objectives. Each one is described below without editorial embellishment, because they speak for themselves.

• Unstoppable: Win 5 Warzone matches within a 12-hour window (excluding Casual)
• Pixel Sniper: Kill an enemy with a Sniper Rifle from over 500 meters away
• Traffic Marshal: Kill an enemy while they are in a vehicle, 25 times
• Gun for Hire: Eliminate 50 Bounty Contract targets (squad must land the kill)
• Scavenger: Win a match with 15+ eliminations without using your Loadout (excluding Casual)