Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was the first game to make open world Zombies work, with half-measures like TranZit failing in the past. Now, it seems like one of Outbreak’s only flaws is being fixed via a new feature, as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War now allows Zombies fans to speed up matches.
In the breakdown for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 3, Treyarch detailed the new content for Outbreak. While the new Duga region and Toxic Growth field upgrade are welcome additions, the post also hints at gameplay improvements for the mode. One of these is the ability to reach new world tiers faster, though Treyarch did not explain how to pull this off. Leaving the community to solve the mystery of speedier tier progression themselves, the speed-up process was quickly figured out by a dedicated Zombies fan.
Redditor Chris-The-Lucario posted their discovery, and fortunately, the process for skipping tiers is incredibly simple. First, players will need to complete an Outbreak region’s objective. Once the objective is complete, they can head to the beacon. Used for exfil and teleportation to the next world tier, the beacon is always marked on the map once the main objective is complete. The region itself does not matter, nor does the tier, meaning that players can skip forward at the start of an Outbreak game or in the middle of one.
Once players have gotten everything they want from the armor stand and the Pack-A-Punch machine, they can interact with the beacon. Once the beacon menu is up, they should try to teleport to the next world tier as normal. As the timer is counting down before teleportation, however, they should break the beacon. In the clip, Christ-The-Lucario does this by hitting it with the E-Tool melee weapon, though a few bullets should work as well. From there, players should be ready to go.
Once the beacon is broken, an ominous siren will play. In the top right corner, the player’s world tier could be seen jumping from 1 to 3. This two-tier increase is a big deal, as it sees players getting through Outbreak’s slowest waves faster. With the Zombies incredibly slow and weak prior to Tier 4, having the ability to skip through these stages will be a major improvement for Outbreak as a whole. While the mode could still benefit from more side quests and original locations, this is clearly a welcome addition.
While Zombies fans will likely be waiting until Season 3 Reloaded for Outbreak’s main quest to be unlocked, this should make playing the mode normally more fun. With players likely still have some secrets to uncover in the latest update, it will be hard to top an improvement like this one.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
