COD Modern Warfare 4 Answers DMZ Players’ PvE Calls With New Story Mission Changes—But Major Caveats Remain

For as long as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s DMZ extraction mode has been available, there’ve been calls for PvE-only servers. Разработчик Infinity Ward, for its part, has maintained the mode is designed as a PvPvE experience, but it’s now seemingly made a change offering solo players something of a compromise, albeit with caveats.

In DMZ, your choice of deployment type dictates the matchmaking pool you’re put into. You can choose to freely roam the map, picking up tasks as you go, or participate in slightly more structured Dynamic Ops which constantly generate tasks for you to do. But DMZ also has Story Missions, a title that suggests they’re private instances. But that wasn’t the case at launch. Although the number of players allowed into Story Mission instances appeared to be smaller than in other modes, it was still possible to run into other players, which meant potentially unwanted PvP encounters.

Now, however, Infinity Ward appears to have made Story Missions private, but only for solo players, and only when playing a Story Mission for the first time – after which, repeated attempts will be much less forgiving.

Infinity Ward has not officially announced a change, but players began noticing it on Reddit and elsewhere, and I wanted to investigate for myself: I just finished a Story Mission – a first attempt – and despite making as much noise as possible, I ran into no other players. The Recent Players list in the social tab, which displays the names of players you’ve recently crossed paths with, was likewise empty for me. I also noticed zero activated UAV Towers and SAM Sites – a rare sight in PvPvE matches where players always run to the former to reveal enemies around them. There’s some suggestion you may still run into others in a Story Mission, however, so best not lower your guard.

As welcome as the change is, it highlights the split in DMZ’s community. Many would rather not cross paths with other players, and it’s especially frustrating for those expecting a purely PvE mode in this year’s Call of Duty.

Mentioned in this article

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (2026)

Nagoshi Studio has officially shut down and its first game, Gang of Dragon, appears to be no longer, months after publisher NetEase pulled funding from the Yakuza-like project.

Toshihiro Nagoshi (often cited as the creator of the acclaimed Yakuza and Like A Dragon game series) opened his new studio in 2021 and announced his next game with a very familiar title almost one year ago. Now, the Tokyo-based developer has closed its doors, as confirmed in the Japanese government gazette Kanpo.

The news comes months after employees were told that the studio’s future was at risk due to NetEase’s funding cuts. Nagoshi Studio reportedly needed another £33.1 million (about $44.4m at the time) to get Gang of Dragon past the finish line – a payoff NetEase purportedly didn’t want to provide.

The China-based Marvel Rivals and Where Winds Meet publisher has been significantly scaling back on international investments in the past few years. Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios was shut down just after launching its gorgeous action game, Worlds Untold (a studio formed by Mass Effect veteran Mac Walters) had to pause operations to find a new partner, and Halo Infinite lead Jerry Hook’s studio also ran into very similar issues last year.

Some developers have been a little luckier. Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture saved itself with a management buyout and now operates as an independent developer, for one.

Not much is known about Gang of Dragon, but its debut trailer featured the violent crime and high drama you’d expect from Nagoshi’s previous work. The game also starred Ma Dong-seok, the acclaimed actor you might recognise from films such as Train to Busan and Marvel’s Eternals.

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Gang of Dragon