Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Outbreak mode coming with Season 2 on Feb. 25

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Outbreak Mode is official, and it's coming at the start of Season 2 on February 25.

Activision and Treyarch revealed the new mode - which previously surfaced via reports from leakers as well as a seemingly unintentional early debut on Treyarch's own site - along with the rest of the early details for the new season. As speculated, Outbreak Mode is a new large-scale Zombies experience which continues the Dark Aether story while letting players take the zombie action to a sprawling open world for the first time.

Outbreak is set in "massive play spaces throughout the Ural mountains" where players can track down objectives, intel, and legions of the undead either on foot or in vehicles. While Treyarch is waiting to reveal more specifics about how the mode plays, some of the early Outbreak team objectives teased so far include using a satellite tracker to hunt down elite enemies, escort a rover, and - in more classic Zombies style - hold out in a confined dark Aether Zone against the slavering hordes.

Your team will only be allowed to exfiltrate from the map once you complete enough of these investigations. Or you could choose to up the ante instead, entering a Dark Aether portal to head to a new region with even more challenges and rewards.

On top of the new way to play Zombies, a new field upgrade and ammo mod are headed to the game, as well as two new skill tiers unlocked via Refined and Flawless Aetherium Crystals. Activision and Treyarch say they will release more details in the days ahead, so stay tuned for additional details ahead of Outbreak Mode's launch on Thursday.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

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