Updated 10.18.23. See updates below.

Things are about to get quite a lot spookier in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone as ‘The Haunting’ event kicks off this week. The Halloween-themed event also serves as the midseason update, so along with creepy changes to maps, modes and so forth, expect a big patch with gun balancing, bug fixes and more.

The Haunting event kicks off one day after the Modern Warfare III beta ends at about 10am PT on Tuesday, October 17th. That’s when the midseason update should go live in Modern Warfare II and Warzone and The Haunting changes will go into effect. Some of the horrific Operator Bundles (more on those in a minute) are already live.

I’d like to also point out that this is the final season of Modern Warfare II and the final season of Warzone’s Al Mazrah map. Modern Warfare III launches on November 10th and Season 1 will see the launch of the brand new Warzone map, Urzikstan, in December.

Here’s the visual aid roadmap for this final half-season:

Before we get into the changes and new content heading to these games, check out this fun new trailer:

Alright, we’ll start with Warzone, move on to Modern Warfare II and then take a look at what’s headed to both games.

Here’s what’s headed to Warzone and the DMZ during The Haunting event:

Some fun changes are also headed to multiplayer, including:

New twists on classic modes include:

We’ve already gotten several Halloween-themed Operators like Alucard from Hellsing, including a bunch in the Season 6 Battle Pass which is headlined by Spawn, but even more are here for this event, including:

On top of this we have the Haunting Soul Capture event across WZ and MWII. It’s basically like the Trophy Hunt Event but you gather Souls from dead Operators and trade these in for rewards in the Events Tab. Finally I can retrieve Souls not only in Dark Souls but in Call Of Duty. Praise the sun!

Actually, the Haunted Boxes look like Mimics, which is another connection to Souls games (and D&D). Maybe we’ll get a Dark Souls crossover someday . . . .

Update 10/18/23

The Haunting event has been going on for about 24 hours now and I thought I would update this post with new information and some impressions.

Most importantly, you need to know that not all of the features advertised for The Haunting go live this week. This was pretty confusing since Activision really marketed this event one way, but we’re getting limited playlists for the first few days before it opens up further. According to the countdown timer in-game, we have 18 more days before The Haunting is over.

Right now we have Al Mazrah at night as well as the very fun Massive Resurgence, which is just a nighttime resurgence on the full Al Mazrah map. It’s crazy and lots of fun, and frankly Al Mazrah looks way better at night, especially in areas like the city.

You can currently play Lockdown on Vondel but not much else other than night versions of Al Mazrah Battle Royale.

There are also the two newly overhauled maps in multiplayer. El Asilo is mostly the exact same with some Day of the Dead cosmetics, but Embassy has been totally overhauled as an area completely overrun by a zombie outbreak. It’s awesome. You can play these in The Haunting 24/7 playlist which is fine except I kept getting El Asilo over and over again and not nearly as many Embassy matches.

Starting this Friday, we finally get both the Vondead mode and Zombie Royale, which were both the big draws for this event. Kind of weird to wait until Friday for these, but I guess that’s how they reel you in!

Operation Nightmare turns out to be way more involved and fun than I expected. You have six challenges to complete:

I’ve currently completed the first four of these, and will tackle the train next. You only need to do five to unlock the Bloody Mess Weapon Blueprint.

These challenges are pretty involved. You’ll need to activate an altar, search through glowing pods in the marsh, find skulls to place in the Pharoah’s tomb and take down flying UFOs as they literally part the sea around you. They went all out with this event and it’s pretty impressive!

A final note: I read through all the patch notes and while there are some bug fixes and other changes, it appears that no weapon balancing has occurred. No buffs or nerfs in either multiplayer or Warzone.

However, there will still be changes coming later in the season, which is an especially long season since it’s the last of Modern Warfare II and Season 1 of MWIII doesn’t start until December when the new Warzone map goes live. So expect some other big updates before then, likely after The Haunting event ends in early November.

I’m enjoying this a lot and I hope you are, too! Nice to see them do something this involved as sort of a last hurrah for Al Mazrah and MWII. I just wish they’d done night mode sooner!

I’m giving away free COD points for this event as a special Halloween treat (no trick!). Check out this video for details and stay frosty!

Happy Halloween!