MW4 DMZ Guide

DMZ is the third pillar of Modern Warfare 4 next to the campaign and multiplayer, and it is the mode that replaced Zombies this year. You drop into Hajin, a radioactive exclusion zone carved out of North and South Korea, with whatever gear you choose to risk, and you keep only what you carry out on the extraction helicopter. Early Access opened on October 20 for digital pre-orders, and the full game launched on October 23 with a forward base, crafting, ten lieutenants to hunt and a separate 70-level progression track. Below, we explain how a deployment works from infil to exfil, what you keep and lose, every station at the Forward Operating Base, the bosses, the trait trees and Operator Prestige, and the questions new players ask most.

What DMZ Is in Modern Warfare 4

DMZ is an extraction shooter inside MW4. You explore an open map, loot, craft, complete objectives and fight both AI soldiers and rival players, then call in a helicopter and get out. Everything you bring is at risk: extract and it stays in your stash, die and it is gone.

The mode is part of the paid game rather than a free download, and there is no PvE-only playlist. A match holds 60 players in 20 squads of three, so every other squad you meet can be friendly, neutral or hostile depending on how you approach them. Proximity chat and the ping wheel let you call a truce.

The quick facts below are what you need before your first deployment.

If you also want to know what changed in the campaign and multiplayer this year, read our overview of everything new in Modern Warfare 4.

Hajin Map: Points of Interest and Threat Levels

Hajin is an exclusion zone created by the events of the MW4 campaign, made of former North Korean territory in the west and South Korean territory in the east, with Hajin City on the eastern side. It has more than 60 named locations, 13 of them major points of interest. The map uses a lettered and numbered grid, and every key you find names the grid square of its door, for example D7 for Imjin Farmland.

Every area has a threat level shown under your compass: Low, Medium, High, Critical or Extreme. It describes only the AI soldiers there, not other players, so a Low zone can still hold a full enemy squad. The table lists the major points of interest from the quietest to the most dangerous parts.

Two places need special gear. The Haneul Nuclear Reactor needs radiation gear and a gas mask, and you reach it by water or through the tunnel from Compound Delta. The underground part of NuriGO Mall is dark enough that you want night vision goggles.

Smaller buildings matter as much as the big names. Fire Stations, marked red, hold radiation gear and parachutes. Police Stations, marked blue, have military gear and a locked armory. Clinics, marked green, hold medical loot, and gas stations repair and refuel vehicles. Ammo and Armor Caches refill you and then go on a short cooldown, and UAV Towers pay DMZ Cash and pulse to reveal players and enemies nearby.

How a DMZ Deployment Works: Infil, Loot and Exfil

Every run starts at the Deploy station with one of three choices. A Story Mission sends you after a specific objective, a Dynamic Operation drops you straight into a contract already in progress, and Free Roam lets you deploy with no mission at all. Squads spawn on the outer edge of the map, away from AI and other players, and there is always a vehicle at your spawn.

How you arrive is your first cost decision. Walking in from the ground is free, and later options let you land closer to your target for DMZ Cash. The two most expensive infils are locked behind story progress: Operation Iron Citadel unlocks the LTV, and Operation Grid Assault unlocks the helicopter.

Radiation and the Match Timer

You have about 30 minutes before radiation starts spreading across Hajin. When the countdown hits zero, the radiation takes roughly 15 more minutes to swallow the whole map, and every exfil inside it closes. Gas masks slow the damage, and since the launch patch they no longer break the moment you step into radiation.

How to Exfil

Three exfil sites are active at a time, marked by green smoke on the map. You call in the Twin Heli Exfil and hold the site for about a minute until it lands. Once on board, the helicopter leaves after 30 seconds, or after 5 seconds if your whole squad is aboard. The site closest to the radiation closes first, and a used site reopens after a cooldown.

When the radiation has eaten the other sites, a final exfil appears. It always leaves at a fixed time and has gas masks on board, so it is a safe way to learn the end of a match in your first runs. Fulton balloons and flares are alternative ways out, but a flare is visible to every squad nearby. The Sky Heist dynamic operation even gives your squad a private helicopter.

The After Action Report

After a successful extraction, the After Action Report grades your run from F to S++ across three categories: Objectives, Combat and Looting. It lists your AI kills, completed missions, opened containers and side operations, and it converts them into DMZ XP.

What You Keep and What You Lose

DMZ in MW4 is fully persistent. Everything in your loadout and backpack is real inventory: extract and it goes to your stash, die and it stays in Hajin. Players who remember DMZ in Modern Warfare II should forget the old insured and contraband weapon split. Here, guns either come from a Weapon Manual, which lets you buy that model again and again, or they are single items you looted and carried out.

A few things soften the risk:

• Secure Slots. A Medium Backpack has a secure slot, and whatever is in it survives your death. Keys, recipes and Weapon Manuals belong there.
• The Free Loadout. It gives you a 1-plate vest, a rifle, a pistol and a couple of grenades for nothing, so a death costs you no stash items.
• The tourniquet. Every player can revive themselves once from Last Stand for free, though you come back Wounded with a lower health cap until you use a Medkit.
• MIA recovery. If your Operator dies, you can pay DMZ Cash to rescue them with their traits intact, or dismiss them and start a fresh one. The price grows with the Operator's trait points.

Weapon Manuals and looted recipes are used up when you extract, and each pays 5,000 DMZ Cash. If a squadmate needs a manual you are carrying, give it to them during the match.

The Forward Operating Base (FOB)

The Forward Operating Base is your hub between deployments. It starts small, and new stations open as your DMZ Level rises. Your stash begins with room for 40 items and 12 weapons, and it is shared by all of your Operators, while each Operator keeps a separate backpack and loadout.

The table shows when each station becomes available.

We go through the first FOB upgrades and stash management step by step in our MW4 DMZ tips and tricks guide.

Loot, DMZ Cash and Crafting

There are two kinds of loot in Hajin. Resources (Synthetics, Electronics, Chemicals and Metals) break down automatically and take no backpack space, so it pays to open every crate, fridge and cache you pass. Items, from Medkits to keys, sit in your backpack slots, and a Basic Pack has only 8. Rarity runs from Common through Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary up to Ultra.

Valuables are marked with a gem icon. They sell for DMZ Cash, but some of them are also ingredients for FOB upgrades, so check the 3D Printer before you sell a stack of documents. Your bank has a cap, and anything you sell above it is lost without a warning. It starts at 100,000 and goes up through Bank Upgrades to 1,000,000.

The 3D Printer opens at DMZ Level 2 with your first recipes. These are the ones you will use most in the first week:

The Gunsmith opens at DMZ Level 10 and sells all 32 launch weapons. A base rifle such as the M4 costs about 5,000 DMZ Cash, each of the five attachment slots costs more than the last, and the Apex slot is free once the weapon is fully leveled. Weapon XP is shared with multiplayer, so leveling a gun in either mode helps both. Any blueprint you own, from the Vault Edition or a bundle, can be built once for free.

Lieutenants, Commanders and AI Threats

The AI in Hajin comes in four tiers: Grunts, Armored soldiers, Armored soldiers with gas masks and Faceless Armored elites. Drone swarms, robot dogs underground, attack helicopters and convoys join them. Watch the Hostiles Kill Count meter: if it fills, a Hunt Squad comes after you and you are Marked for Death.

The 10 Hajin Lieutenants

Lieutenants are named bosses with high health and a personal loot room. There are ten of them: Gorani, The Chemist, Jin-Tae, The Doctor, Bale, Iskra, Scavenger, Roze, Jang-Ui and The Warden. Each pays a 10,000 DMZ Cash bounty from the Boss Board, and intel on where a lieutenant is costs 25,000 and lasts one deployment. Some intel stays locked until you finish a DMZ Orders chapter.

Every lieutenant drops a Dog Tag Case. Picking it up broadcasts your position to everyone about every five seconds, so head straight to an exfil. The Boss Board also tracks three long challenges: kill every lieutenant once, then extract each one's tags two times and five times.

Commanders

Commanders are the three biggest threats on the map: Colossus, a seven-foot minigunner; Deathstalker, a drone the size of a helicopter; and the North Korean Battle Tank. You can't buy intel on them. Each pays DMZ Cash the first time you kill it, and extracting afterwards gives rare printer ingredients. A captured SAM site targets aircraft on its own and helps a lot against the Deathstalker.

DMZ Progression: Level 70, Traits and Operator Prestige

DMZ has its own level track from 1 to 70, separate from the 55 multiplayer levels. DMZ XP also counts toward your multiplayer level, but multiplayer and Warzone XP do not count toward DMZ. You earn XP even when a run ends without an exfil, so a failed deployment still moves you forward.

Active Duty Operators

You start with two Active Duty slots and unlock a third through DMZ levels; the Vault Edition starts with three. An Operator is locked to a slot until you dismiss them. Use the second slot as a mule for spare keys and gear: leave that Operator without a weapon or vest, and the missing-items warning stops you from deploying them by accident.

Trait Trees

Each Operator earns Trait Points as their dog tag rises from Steel to Onyx III, one point per level and 18 in total. Points go into three trees: Warfighter for combat, Scout for information and looting, and Survivalist for healing and revives. Each tree has 6 Major traits you can always see and 16 Minor traits that are random, and a tree holds up to 9 points, so 18 points max out two trees. Your choices are permanent until you prestige.

A few traits stand out early. Possum lets you get back up once per match after your squad is wiped. Overwatch makes UAV Towers you activate never expire, and Thermal Padding hides you from enemy UAVs.

Operator Prestige

Once an Operator has spent all 18 points and isn't MIA, you can prestige them. The Operator starts again with fresh traits, and in return you get a starter kit, DMZ Cash and one permanent Prestige Trait, a stronger Pro version of a Major trait. You can hold up to three of them, and from the fourth prestige on you can swap one for a new offer.

If you would rather skip the early grind with a pro player on your squad, our MW4 rent a booster service covers DMZ runs too.

Story Missions, DMZ Orders and Dynamic Operations

There are three kinds of objectives in DMZ, and each gives something different.

Story Missions are picked at the Deploy station from a choice of three. Finishing the first three unlocks two more, then a final one, and every mission can be replayed. You are the only squad with that mission active, though other players can still get in the way. A mission takes 10 to 15 minutes, ends with a guaranteed exfil and pays 25,000 DMZ Cash plus an item:

• Critical Extraction at Mirae General Hospital rewards a Defibrillator.
• Silent Ledger, in the casino vault at Cheongun Village, rewards a Gold Bar and a Polaris Dagor.
• Shopping Hacks at NuriGO Mall rewards night vision goggles, so you don't need to bring your own.
• Iron Citadel and Grid Assault unlock the LTV and helicopter infils.

DMZ Orders are chapters you take from the laptop at the FOB, such as Human Intel, Underground and Counterfeit. Each chapter is a list of tasks, for example entering a Police Station, searching three containers and killing five soldiers inside. Your progress stays after a death unless the order says otherwise.

Dynamic Operations start from a phone or contract icon in the world, or you deploy straight into one. Each chains three or four steps and pays 10,000 to 20,000 DMZ Cash straight to your bank, even if your squad is wiped afterwards. A supply drop follows every completed op, and it gets better with each op you finish in the same deployment.

Can You Play DMZ Solo?

Yes. Turn Squad Fill off on the Ready Up screen and you deploy alone. Matchmaking tries to put solo players with other solos, but the developers have said this isn't guaranteed, so you will sometimes meet a full squad. Early solo runs are calmer than their reputation: players who spent the first launch days solo reported meeting pre-made squads only a handful of times in several hours. Traits like Possum and Free Revive and your free tourniquet make up for the missing teammates.

DMZ Mastery Camos

DMZ has its own mastery camo track, and it opens after you earn Harmonic Break on all 33 weapons. Progress on camos is shared between multiplayer and DMZ, and special camo challenges adjust to the mode you play.

The full ladder from Military camos to Divergence is explained in our MW4 camo guide.

More MW4 Guides

Here is where to go next, from your first runs in Hajin to the camo grind and your multiplayer level.

MW4 DMZ FAQ

These are the questions new players ask most in the first week.