Call of Duty: Dark Horizon
| Call of Duty: Dark Horizon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Supreme Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Activision |
| Producer(s) | Marcus Vale |
| Designer(s) |
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| Writer(s) |
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| Composer(s) | Jason Dale |
| Series | Call of Duty |
| Engine | IW Engine |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | November 7, 2028 |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer, co-op |
Call of Duty: Dark Horizon is a 2028 first-person shooter video game developed by Supreme Studios and published by Activision. It is the twenty-fifth main installment in the Call of Duty series and the first entry in the Dark Horizon sub-series. Set in a near-future world devastated by technological collapse and geopolitical warfare, the game's single-player campaign follows a multinational special forces unit attempting to stop a rogue military artificial intelligence known as ARES from triggering a global extinction event.
Like previous entries in the franchise, Dark Horizon features three primary game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies. The multiplayer mode introduced large-scale environmental destruction, dynamic weather systems, and a new movement mechanic known as "Adaptive Combat", while the Zombies mode continued the Dark Aether storyline from previous Call of Duty titles through a new narrative centered around the collapse of reality itself.
The game was officially revealed on June 12, 2028, during a worldwide showcase event hosted by Activision. Dark Horizon was released on November 7, 2028, for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. Upon release, the game received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised the campaign's darker tone, the multiplayer's environmental systems, and Zombies' return to large-scale round-based experiences.
Gameplay
Call of Duty: Dark Horizon is a first-person shooter featuring traditional military combat mechanics alongside new traversal, environmental, and AI systems. Players use a variety of modern and experimental weapons, gadgets, killstreaks, and support equipment to engage hostile forces across all three game modes.
A new movement system known as "Adaptive Combat" allows players to perform contextual actions based on terrain and momentum, including wall-assisted vaulting, combat rolls, environmental dives, and tactical recoveries. Environmental conditions such as rain, ash, sandstorms, and electrical interference dynamically affect gameplay visibility and weapon handling.
The game also introduces expanded destruction systems, allowing certain structures, cover positions, and environmental objects to collapse or become permanently altered during gameplay.
Campaign
The campaign follows Daniel Cross, Maya Vance, and Victor Kane as they investigate a series of coordinated military attacks linked to ARES, an advanced defense AI system originally designed to prevent global warfare. Missions take place across multiple global locations, including Tokyo, Berlin, Iceland, Singapore, and New York City.
The campaign features semi-open combat spaces that allow players to complete objectives through stealth, reconnaissance, direct assault, or technological sabotage. Between missions, players return to a mobile command center known as "The Bastion", where they can upgrade weapons, interact with squad members, and access intelligence briefings.
Several missions include large-scale destruction events, aerial combat, and survival-horror inspired sequences tied to Dark Aether experimentation.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer component features traditional six-versus-six combat alongside larger-scale game modes supporting up to 40 players across a variety of core and large-scale maps. Returning modes include Team Deathmatch, Domination, Search and Destroy, Hardpoint, Kill Confirmed, Free-for-All, and Gunfight, while new modes introduced in Dark Horizon include "Blackout Zone", an objective-based mode featuring collapsing environments and shifting combat zones, and "Overrun", a hybrid experience in which opposing teams simultaneously fight enemy players and hostile AI-controlled forces. The game introduces the "Adaptive Combat" movement system, allowing players to perform contextual traversal actions, combat rolls, environmental dives, and momentum-based maneuvers depending on terrain and movement speed. Multiplayer maps also feature dynamic weather systems, including sandstorms, thunderstorms, ashfall, and electrical interference events capable of altering visibility, traversal routes, audio clarity, and equipment performance during matches.
Dark Horizon's progression system includes weapon mastery challenges, seasonal ranking ladders, operator unlocks, and a revised Prestige system, alongside an expanded Gunsmith mechanic allowing deeper weapon customization through ammunition conversions, attachment tuning, and receiver modifications. A new gameplay mechanic known as "Combat Traits" allows players to specialize in support, reconnaissance, assault, or mobility-focused playstyles through passive bonuses and equipment enhancements. Several maps additionally feature large-scale destruction events capable of permanently altering sections of the battlefield during gameplay, including collapsing buildings, breached walls, environmental hazards, and disabled traversal routes.
Zombies
In Zombies, one to four players fight hordes of the undead, which increase in both number and difficulty with every completed round, across four round-based maps—Temple of IX, The Hollow Below, Abyssus, and Frozen Dawn—which continue the Chaos storyline following the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018). The mode follows Scarlett Rhodes, Diego Necalli, Bruno Delacroix, and Stanton Shaw as they search for the missing Alistair Rhodes while confronting the return of the ancient Order and a growing corruption spreading across multiple mythological dimensions. Each map features a main quest, side quests, hidden easter eggs, Wonder Weapons, unique enemy types, and in-engine cinematic sequences tied directly to the ongoing narrative. The mode retains several gameplay systems introduced in previous Zombies iterations, including the dual-currency system of "Essence" and "Salvage", which are used to unlock new areas of the maps, purchase armor upgrades and Perk-a-Colas, apply ammo modifications, upgrade weapons through the Pack-a-Punch machine, and craft lethal and tactical equipment. The "Augments" system also returns, allowing players to equip major and minor upgrades to perks, field upgrades, and ammo mods, while "Elixirs" and "Talismans" make their first appearance since Black Ops 4, functioning as consumable gameplay modifiers and passive bonuses. Dark Horizon introduces a new gameplay system known as "Relics", rare artifacts that can dramatically alter gameplay through randomized modifiers affecting enemy behaviors, player abilities, environmental hazards, and progression systems during matches. The mode also features the return of "Directed" mode, which provides players with in-game guidance and objective tracking while completing a map's main quest. Supplementing the standard and Directed experiences are three additional game modes: "Survival", "Gauntlet", and "Cursed". Survival restricts players to isolated sections of the core maps while tasking them with surviving increasingly difficult enemy waves for as long as possible, while Gauntlet reintroduces the challenge-based gameplay format from Black Ops 4, featuring rotating gameplay restrictions and objective modifiers each round. Cursed functions as a more difficult variant of standard Zombies gameplay, featuring limited HUD elements, more aggressive enemy behaviors, reduced resources, enhanced boss encounters, and several mechanics inspired by earlier Zombies titles, including a revised point system modeled after Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015).
Plot
Campaign
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Zombies
Zombies
| No. | Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Temple of IX" | November 7, 2028 | |
| Following the events in Delphi, Diego Necalli (Jaime Camil) escapes with the unconscious Scarlett Rhodes (Courtenay Taylor) after Medusa reveals her intention to claim the Library of the Nine and reshape humanity through Chaos energy. Diego eventually reunites with Bruno Delacroix (Mark Ivanir) and Stanton Shaw (Nick Boraine), who are increasingly struggling against the influence of their corrupted dark selves. Guided by fragmented instructions left behind by Alistair Rhodes (Charles Dennis), the crew travels to a hidden underground temple buried beneath the Roman Colosseum, where an ancient Sentinel trial tied to the Gods of Chaos was once sealed away. Within the ruins, the group battles undead gladiators, corrupted priests, and colossal mythological beasts while attempting to recover a relic known as the Heart of IX, which Alistair believed could weaken Medusa's control over the Sentinel Artifacts. During the trial, Scarlett begins experiencing visions connected to the Prima Materia, revealing that the corruption spreading across reality predates the Order itself. After defeating the temple's guardian, a monstrous amalgamation of stone and flesh known as the Gorgolith, the crew acquires the Heart of IX and uncovers evidence that Medusa is searching for an ancient realm known only as the Hollow Earth. | |||
| 2 | "The Hollow Below" | December 14, 2028 | |
| Pursuing clues left behind by Alistair, the crew descends into the Hollow Earth, a massive subterranean civilization hidden beneath the Sahara Desert that served as one of the first strongholds of the Order. The city has been completely overrun by undead creatures and warped wildlife corrupted by concentrated Prima Materia exposure. As the crew navigates ancient temples and abandoned excavation sites, they encounter surviving members of a forgotten cult who reveal that Medusa seeks to awaken an entity known as the First Serpent, an ancient being worshipped by the earliest followers of Chaos. Scarlett discovers additional truths about her father's past involvement with the Sentinel Artifacts, while Bruno's dark self grows increasingly violent and unstable. The crew eventually reaches a gigantic underground gateway containing the dormant remains of the First Serpent. After battling a massive corrupted guardian known as the Dread Titan, they prevent the creature's resurrection, though Medusa successfully retrieves a fragment of the Serpent's essence before escaping deeper into the underground world. | |||
| 3 | "Abyssus" | February 20, 2029 | |
| The crew follows Medusa to Abyssus, a forgotten city hidden beneath the Atlantic Ocean and believed to be one of the final surviving remnants of Atlantis. Protected for centuries by powerful Sentinel barriers, the city has begun collapsing as Chaos energy consumes its foundations. The crew encounters undead Atlantean warriors, mutated sea creatures, and ancient constructs created to guard the city's knowledge. While searching for a device capable of sealing the growing dimensional corruption, Shaw's dark self fully takes control, nearly causing the deaths of the entire group before Scarlett manages to temporarily restore his consciousness using the Heart of IX. Deep within the city's central archives, the crew discovers that the Sentinel Artifacts were originally created to imprison entities from a realm beyond human reality. Medusa reaches the city's core first and uses the Serpent's essence to awaken the Leviathan, a gigantic creature buried beneath the ocean floor. After an enormous battle throughout the collapsing ruins of Abyssus, the crew defeats the Leviathan and escapes moments before the city is destroyed beneath the Atlantic. | |||
| 4 | "Frozen Dawn" | April 18, 2029 | |
| Guided by the final messages left behind by Alistair Rhodes, the crew travels to an abandoned Order fortress hidden within the frozen mountains of Antarctica, where Medusa prepares to complete a ritual capable of permanently unleashing Chaos across the world. The fortress contains the entrance to the Library of the Nine itself, now heavily corrupted by Prima Materia and infested with undead explorers, failed Order experiments, and ancient mythological horrors frozen beneath the ice for centuries. As reality begins collapsing around them, Scarlett learns that Medusa intends to merge humanity with Chaos energy to create a new world under her control. Bruno ultimately sacrifices himself to resist his dark self long enough for the others to enter the Library and confront Medusa directly. Following a large-scale battle against Medusa's transformed serpent form and the awakened manifestations of Chaos itself, Scarlett uses the combined power of the Sentinel Artifacts and the Heart of IX to imprison Medusa within the Library. However, as the fortress collapses into the ice, a hidden chamber deep beneath Antarctica begins transmitting a mysterious signal linked to the Prima Materia, hinting that the corruption has not been fully destroyed. | |||
Development
Call of Duty: Dark Horizon was developed by Supreme Studios using an upgraded version of the IW Engine. Development began in early 2025 following internal restructuring at Activision and was led by producer Marcus Vale.
The development team focused heavily on environmental immersion, destruction physics, and dynamic world systems. According to the developers, the game's darker tone and near-future setting were inspired by real-world fears surrounding artificial intelligence, automated warfare, and societal collapse.
The Zombies mode was developed simultaneously alongside the campaign rather than as a separate post-production experience. Developers described it as one of the most ambitious cooperative experiences in franchise history.
Music
Jason Dale composed the game's musical score, combining orchestral instrumentation with industrial electronic elements and distorted synth textures. Kevin Sherwood returned to compose the Zombies easter egg songs featured throughout the mode.
Marketing
Marketing for Dark Horizon began in May 2028 through a series of cryptic teaser videos depicting malfunctioning military broadcasts and emergency evacuation alerts. Activision later launched a viral marketing website titled "ARES Observation Network", which featured hidden transmissions, countdown timers, and classified documents teasing the game's setting.
The game was officially revealed during a worldwide showcase event on June 12, 2028. A multiplayer reveal event followed on June 19, while the Zombies mode received a dedicated reveal presentation on June 26.
Throughout August and September 2028, Activision released several live-action commercials depicting civilians experiencing the collapse of global communications caused by ARES.
Release
Call of Duty: Dark Horizon was released on November 7, 2028, for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.
Players who pre-ordered the game received early access to a multiplayer beta held across two weekends in September 2028. The beta included four multiplayer maps, multiple game modes, and access to the Adaptive Combat movement system.
Activision confirmed that the game would receive ongoing seasonal content updates, including additional multiplayer maps, Zombies experiences, weapons, operators, and crossover events.
Post-release updates
Following release, Supreme Studios supported Dark Horizon through free seasonal updates adding new maps, weapons, operators, and Zombies content. Each season also introduced a premium battle pass and limited-time events.
Reception
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | PS5: 84/100 |
| OpenCritic | 89% recommend |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Eurogamer | 4/5 |
| GameSpot | 8/10 |
| IGN | 9/10 |
| PC Gamer (US) | 78/100 |
Dark Horizon received generally favorable reviews from critics upon release. Reviewers praised the game's darker campaign tone, environmental destruction systems, multiplayer innovations, and Zombies content.
Critics particularly highlighted the Adaptive Combat movement system and the dynamic weather effects featured throughout multiplayer. The Zombies mode received praise for its atmosphere, narrative scale, and round-based gameplay structure.
Some criticism was directed toward the game's online-only requirement and technical issues present at launch.
Sales
Dark Horizon achieved the largest launch weekend for a Call of Duty title since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024). Activision reported strong player engagement across all three modes, with the Zombies mode reaching record concurrent player counts during launch week.
By March 2029, the game had surpassed 38 million players worldwide.
Notes
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