MW4 DMZ beginner's guide

DMZ is a risk-and-reward mode inside Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Every run (the guides call it a deployment) starts with you dropping in and ends with you reaching an extraction point. In between you scavenge for loot, take on objectives, and deal with enemy soldiers and rival players.

Make it out and your haul is yours. Go down first and you lose nearly everything you were carrying.

It all happens in the Hajin Exclusion Zone, set in Korea. The western wilderness used to be North Korea and the rest was South Korea.

Between runs you go back to your base, the FOB, and that's where your permanent progress lives. Your levels, your gear and your unlocks all carry over, so even a bad night moves you forward.

To play early you need a digital pre-order or pre-purchase of the Standard Digital or Vault edition.

DMZ is a mode in Modern Warfare 4, and the official guides don't describe a separate free version.

The FOB (Forward Operating Base) is your home between deployments. You drop off loot, gear up and pick up Orders there, and all your permanent progress lives there.

Nine stations are open from the start. Five more unlock as you level, beginning with the 3D Printer at DMZ Level 2.

An Operator is the character you deploy as. You start with two Operator slots (three with the Vault edition), and DMZ levels give you one more.

Recruit an Operator into a slot and it stays there until you dismiss it, and the same Operator can't sit in two slots. The look is only cosmetic; the Traits you earn are what count.

For a first run, bring at least a Plate Carrier (an armor vest), a backpack, a weapon and a Medkit. Before that, open your Survival Kits: free loot packs that go straight into your Stash, the storage all your Operators share.

Anything in your backpack that isn't in a Secure Slot, a protected backpack slot, is lost if you don't exfil. The Medium Backpack adds Secure Slots, which makes it the first thing I'd chase.

Resources never use a slot, but 3D Printer Ingredients do, so empty your backpack into the Stash after every exfil.

I play on my Expel controller, and my controller settings are on the site if you want a place to start.

For a first run, I'd pick Dynamic Ops, Ground infil and the Free Loadout. There's nothing to lose.

To start a run, walk to the razor wire and the transport helicopter at the FOB and open Deploy. There are three ways in.

Every place on the map has a Threat level, from Low up to Extreme. It only counts AI, so other players aren't part of it.

Loot as soon as you land. Opening containers is one of the steadiest XP sources, and it feeds your FOB. Don't only loot, though: your rating scores Objectives, Combat and Looting together, so a balanced run reaches an S.

Check every cache, locker, crate and box. A door locked from the inside means there's another way in, and rural and wooded areas hide underground entrances.

When you go loud, watch the Threat level. Break line of sight, take cover or move somewhere rural to calm it down, and use quiet kills (melee, throwing knives, suppressed shots) to keep it low. Player kills pay more XP than AI, but long AI fights still raise your Combat rating.

Every vehicle has limited armor and fuel, which is different from Warzone. Repair and refuel at Gas Stations, and boats at Marine Gas Stations; both refill Gas Cans. The Train and the Tram run on their own.

To find one, climb a Lieutenant Hunt tower and use the station at the top, which marks the nearest Lieutenant and counts as a Side Op. A kill pays big XP and cash, has a rare chance of dropping their weapon, and may drop a Key to their loot room.

A Lieutenant always drops a Dog Tag Case. Picking it up shows your position to everyone, so plan to exfil quickly.

Extracting the case moves your Boss Board forward, even if you took it from another player. At the Boss Board you can buy intel on a Lieutenant for cash, which lasts one deployment, once you finish a set of challenges.

How much you fight other players is up to you. Use proximity chat, call a Truce on the ping wheel, or team up. If a fight does start, player kills feed a bounty system.

Kill a player and you get a Bounty, a price on your head, shown on your Dog Tag. Four player kills across deployments makes you Wanted, and nearby players get an alert when you're close. To hunt a target, buy intel at a Bounty Station, kill them and extract with their Dog Tag.

Everything outside a Secure Slot is lost, but the XP you earned still counts. Other players can take your Dog Tag, and if they extract with it, it goes into their Dog Tag Case.

What about insurance? The Vault Deployment Kit includes Weapon Insurance Contracts, but neither guide explains what they do. For now, Secure Slots are the way to protect an item.

There are other ways out: a Fulton balloon or a Flare. Flares are loud and visible from far away, so expect company.

Any Recipe or Weapon Manual in your bag is used up when you exfil. It unlocks automatically and pays 5,000 DMZ Cash each.

After every run, whether you got out or not, the After Action Report walks through it page by page, from your haul to your rating. Each DMZ level you gain unlocks something, and each Operator Dog Tag level is a Trait Point, so a big run can earn more than one.

The 3D Printer unlocks at DMZ Level 2. To craft anything you need a Recipe, Resources and Ingredients. Recipes come from DMZ levels, Orders, or extracting with them.

The Vendor opens at Level 5 and sells guns and gear for DMZ Cash. Its stock refreshes over time and gets better as you level. The Gunsmith opens at Level 10: you extract with a gun's Weapon Manual once, then buy it as often as you like.

A base M4 costs about 5,000, and Gunny will make a build for you if you can't decide. The Dog Tag Case opens at Level 20 and holds the tags from players you killed and extracted with.

Once an Operator has earned all 18 Trait Points (Onyx III), you can Prestige it, as long as it isn't MIA. You hand in gear and cash, the Traits reset, and you get a random Permanent Prestige Trait. It's separate from your Multiplayer prestige and from your DMZ level.