Warzone & DMZ Contracts, Buy Stations & Killstreaks

By Treesz · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Call of Duty has collected a pile of match terms over the years: contracts you pick up on the map, shops where you spend match cash, crates that fall from the sky, and words that only make sense inside one mode. Many of them come from games that are no longer current, so the same word can mean different things in Warzone, in DMZ and in multiplayer or Zombies. This page explains each term, names the game or mode it belongs to, and says whether it is still part of the game on 1 November 2026.

Where things stand on that date: Modern Warfare 4 launched on 23 October 2026 and brought DMZ back as a new extraction mode set in the Hajin Exclusion Zone. Activision has dated Season 1 of Modern Warfare 4 and the Warzone integration to 6 November 2026, so on 1 November Warzone still runs its Black Ops 7 era content. The first DMZ of 2022 and 2023 (Modern Warfare II, Al Mazrah, Ashika Island) is a different version from the new one, and most DMZ terms below come from it.

Term	Game or mode it comes from	Status on 1 November 2026
Bounty, Most Wanted	Warzone (2020, Warzone 2.0, Black Ops 6 Warzone)	Both on the Black Ops 6 Season 1 contract list; check the current season
Safecracker	Warzone 2.0 (Al Mazrah, 2022)	Not on the Black Ops 6 Season 1 contract list
Buy Station, Portable Buy Station	Warzone	Buy Stations are core Warzone; the portable one returns as loot or a field upgrade in some seasons
Exfil chopper	DMZ, Zombies	Helicopter exfil is part of the new Modern Warfare 4 DMZ
Contraband Stash, White Lotus	DMZ (2022 to 2023 version)	Old DMZ is retired; the new DMZ is a separate rebuild
Emergency Airdrop	Multiplayer killstreak	Last seen in Modern Warfare III; not in the Modern Warfare 4 launch list
Birdseye	Perk since Modern Warfare II	A Perk 2 option in Modern Warfare 4
Drill Charge	Lethal equipment since Modern Warfare II	Lethal in Modern Warfare 4, unlocks at level 7
Co-op Raid Episode	Modern Warfare II Special Ops	Modern Warfare II content only
GA List	Call of Duty League community rule	Rebuilt every year

Contracts

Contracts are optional side objectives that appear on the tactical map in Warzone. You pick one up at a contract phone, and completing it pays match cash and XP, plus a reward that depends on the contract type. The list of contract types changes between Warzone versions, so always check which version a guide describes.

Bounty Contract

A Bounty contract marks an enemy for you to hunt. In the original Warzone (Verdansk, 2020) it gave you a few minutes to find and eliminate a player from another squad, and the map showed only an approximate area. Activision's contract guide for that game says that eliminating the target pays cash and XP, and that if time remains after a kill, the timer extends and the mark moves to another member of the target squad.

Bounties have had a bumpy history. Most Wanted contracts arrived on 28 April 2020 in place of Bounties, and an update two days later brought Bounties back after player complaints.

Black Ops 6 Warzone, whose Season 1 started on 14 November 2024, lists two versions:

Version	How it works	Reward
Bounty	Target shown inside a shrinking circle; the target sees a threat-level indicator as you get closer	Cash, XP and a ping on the body; a smaller "poached" payout if another player kills the target first
Big Game Bounty	Appears only after the second circle closes and targets the teams with the most kills	Advanced UAV, a large cash payout and XP

Elite versions of contracts can also appear: a 45 percent shorter timer, an extra 1,500 cash and a reward crate. Practical rule: scout the circle first, go in with your squad and do not chase a bounty past the edge of the next circle. Bounties are a Warzone feature. Do not confuse them with the Bounty Board in the new Modern Warfare 4 DMZ hub, which is a mission board, not a hunt contract.

Most Wanted Contract

Most Wanted is the reverse of a Bounty. Instead of hunting someone, you mark yourself, and every enemy squad can see where you are. In the original Warzone, Activision's guide gives the rules: survive for three minutes and you get a large cash payout plus a free redeploy for every dead squadmate. Anyone who kills an active Most Wanted target earns cash and XP.

Black Ops 6 Warzone Season 1 added ways to shorten the wait: each kill your team gets removes 25 seconds from the timer and each loot cache you open removes 10 seconds. Surviving pays cash and XP, revives your downed squadmates and drops a VIP crate with a weapon, ammo, armor plates, a Gulag token, cash and a killstreak. This contract cannot become an Elite contract.

Two removals are worth knowing. The 2020 version replaced Bounties for about two days before Bounties returned. In November 2022, Infinity Ward removed Most Wanted from Warzone 2.0 "until further notice" after players found an XP exploit with it.

Safecracker Contract

Safecracker is a Warzone 2.0 contract (Al Mazrah, launched November 2022). On the tactical map it shows as a light green phone icon with a safe symbol. After you take it, you have to open three safes in three locations within the same area. For each safe you place C4 on it, step back, wait for the blast and loot what is inside: cash, weapons and sometimes killstreaks. Several Warzone 2.0 guides rated it the best early-game source of cash, because the safes sit close together and the contract has no target that fights back.

Do not mix it up with the locked safes in the 2022 DMZ, which belonged to missions and keys and were a separate system. Safecracker is missing from the eight contract types of Black Ops 6 Warzone Season 1 (Bounty, Big Game Bounty, Scavenger, Intel, Most Wanted, Signals Intelligence, Spy Drone and Elite contracts), so treat it as a Warzone 2.0 contract unless a later season brings it back.

Supply Run Contract

Supply Run is a Warzone contract that sends you to a marked Buy Station against a clock. In Activision's original Warzone guide the timer is two minutes, and the reward is cash plus an 80 percent discount at that station: a Self-Revive Kit and redeploying a fallen teammate become free, and you get one discounted item per visit. The Loadout Drop marker is not discounted. See Supply Run Contract for the full entry.

Buy Stations and shopping

Buy Station

A Buy Station is a shop terminal in Warzone where you spend match cash picked up from loot, contracts and kills. The usual shelf is armor plates, Self-Revive Kits, UAVs, Precision Airstrikes, redeploys for dead teammates and the Loadout Drop marker. Teams pool cash for the expensive items.

Contracts interact with stations. A completed Supply Run turns one purchase into a heavily discounted one, and the Recon (later Intel) contract shows where the next circle will close, which tells you which station is still safe to reach. Buy Stations are a Warzone mechanic and are not part of standard multiplayer. In Warzone 2.0 Season 3 (2023), Raven reworked stations so that some items had limited stock and prices rose, so the shelf and prices depend on the season.

Portable Buy Station

A Portable Buy Station is a station you call in yourself instead of walking to a fixed one. It was first announced for Warzone's Season 2 Reloaded on Caldera (23 March 2022) and shipped as a Deployable Buy Station: legendary ground loot that you use like a marker, after which a station appears at that spot with the same items as a regular one. It cost nothing beyond finding it.

It has come back several times. Warzone 2.0 brought Deployable Buy Stations back during Season 3 in 2023, delivered by a drone that any player can shoot down, with an alert to nearby players. In Black Ops 6 Warzone it is a field upgrade that calls in a station by drone, and shooting the drone changes where the station lands. Because enemies see and hear the drop, place it early in a circle rather than during a fight.

Loadout Drop

A Loadout Drop swaps your ground loot for your own saved class, and it is the main reason Warzone plays differently from other battle royales. The marker is bought at a Buy Station. The dedicated entry is Loadout Drop.

Public Event: Fire Sale

A Fire Sale is a public event that makes Buy Station purchases cheaper for a short time, so squads rush the stations. Its details changed from version to version; see Public Event: Fire Sale for what it does and how to use it.

Killstreaks, drops and equipment

Emergency Airdrop

Emergency Airdrop is a multiplayer killstreak, not a Warzone contract or a DMZ item. Calling it in sends several care packages to your position from a large aircraft, each with a random streak. How many packages and what it costs depends on the game:

Game	Cost	Packages
Modern Warfare 2 (2009)	8 kills	4
Modern Warfare (2019)	8 kills	3
Modern Warfare III (2023)	10 kills or 1,250 score	3
Modern Warfare 4 (2026)	Not in the launch list	-

Older pages that say "four packages" describe the 2009 game. Modern Warfare 4 launched with a single Care Package at 4 kills (unlocks at level 9) but no Emergency Airdrop. The practical risk is the same in every version: you stand still in the open while the crates drop, so clear the area first and share the packages with teammates.

Drill Charge

The Drill Charge is a lethal throwable that sticks to a surface, burrows through it with a thermal lance and explodes on the other side. It first appeared in Modern Warfare II (2022) and Warzone 2.0, not in Modern Warfare (2019). It can go through walls, roofs, moveable cover, vehicles and players, which makes it the standard answer to a camper behind a door or a riot shield. Against vehicles one charge often does not finish the job, so damage the vehicle first.

Game	Status
Modern Warfare II (2022)	Lethal equipment; underbarrel drill launcher attachments fire a similar charge
Modern Warfare III (2023)	Lethal equipment
Modern Warfare 4 (2026)	Lethal equipment, unlocks at player level 7

In the first DMZ, a mission called Boring Operation asked you to kill six riot-shield enemies with a Drill Charge, which shows what the developers had in mind for it.

Standalone killstreak and equipment entries

Precision Airstrike: a targeted airstrike you call in yourself, used in Warzone and multiplayer.
UAV and Advanced UAV: radar sweeps; the Advanced version also shows which way enemies face. In Modern Warfare 4 the UAV costs 4 kills and the Advanced UAV 10.
Orange Supply Crate: a high-tier supply box in Warzone.
Trophy System: defensive equipment that shoots down incoming projectiles.

Information perks

Birdseye

Birdseye is a perk, not a map feature. It zooms the minimap out and makes UAV and radar pings show which way enemies are facing, so a normal UAV gives you part of what an Advanced UAV does.

Game	Slot and status
Modern Warfare II (2022) and Warzone 2.0	Ultimate perk
Warzone 2.0	Disabled on 30 January 2023, back in a rebalanced form in Season 3; reworked in Season 4 Reloaded (12 July 2023)
Modern Warfare 4 (2026)	Perk 2 option, unlocks at level 40

The history is the useful part. Raven Software pulled Birdseye from Warzone 2.0 battle royale in January 2023 because it gave Advanced UAV information from an ordinary UAV. The Season 4 Reloaded rework turned it into a counter to Ghost: when a player with Birdseye calls in a UAV, enemies running Ghost are revealed to them. The perks glossary lists the other current perks and their slots.

Extraction and DMZ terms

DMZ is Call of Duty's extraction mode: you drop in, loot, fight players and AI, and leave through an exfil with what you carry. The first DMZ launched with Warzone 2.0 in November 2022. From Modern Warfare III Season 1 it no longer interacted with the new game or Warzone, so its progress stopped counting toward new Battle Passes and player levels, and Black Ops 6 did not bring it back.

The mode returned in Modern Warfare 4 on 23 October 2026, rebuilt around a hub called the Forward Operating Base (FOB), where every run starts and ends. The FOB holds the Stash for persistent items, a crafting station, a 3D Printer and the Bounty Board, and progression unlocks new FOB stations. The zone includes a fallout reactor, a prison complex, the ruins of Hajin City and a military base, and Season 1 adds a new DMZ map, X01. Everything under this heading that mentions Al Mazrah or factions describes the 2022 to 2023 version.

Exfil Chopper

Exfil means leaving the map with what you carry. The helicopter version is a DMZ mechanic: at an exfil point you call the chopper, guides say it arrives about a minute later, then a 30-second countdown starts and the chopper leaves when it ends, whether you boarded or not. Other teams can reach the same landing zone, so exfil points are contested. In the 2022 DMZ a separate Heavy Chopper exfil needed fuel collected at the airport first. The new Modern Warfare 4 DMZ keeps the helicopter exfil: you call it, board and stay inside until the countdown reaches zero.

Zombies has its own exfil. In Black Ops Cold War Zombies it is offered at set rounds, and you must clear a wave in the exfil zone before the chopper takes you out. Modern Warfare III Zombies used a DMZ-style helicopter exfil with zombies in place of enemy soldiers.

Contraband Stash

In the 2022 to 2023 DMZ, any gun you picked up in a raid and carried out through exfil became a contraband weapon, kept in your Contraband Stash. Weapons from your own loadout went into insured slots: you started with one, could unlock up to three through faction missions, and a slot lost on death went on a cooldown of about two hours. Contraband weapons had no insurance, and you lost anything you took in if you died. Extracting with a contraband weapon also unlocked its base version for multiplayer and Warzone 2.0.

Stash size is where guides disagree. Prima Games gives a limit of 20 weapons for Modern Warfare II owners (Warzone-only players had fewer), and Season 4 (June 2023) added Contraband Stash expansions of three to five slots each, unlocked through Black Mous reputation and extraction challenges. Season 2 (February 2023) wiped all contraband along with faction progress.

In the new Modern Warfare 4 DMZ, stored items live in the Stash at the FOB. Do not confuse the Contraband Stash with the hidden caches around Warzone maps; those are loot spots, not your storage.

White Lotus

White Lotus is one of the three launch factions of the original DMZ, next to Legion and Black Mous. You do not fight it; you take missions from it. The order mattered: Legion's Tier 1 missions were open from the start, and White Lotus unlocked after the Legion Tier 1 story mission Storm the Stronghold. Black Mous came last, after Tier 2 story missions for both Legion and White Lotus. Each faction had five tiers at launch, and each tier opened when the previous one was done.

In Season 2 (February 2023) Activision wiped DMZ faction tiers, mission progress, contraband, keys and insured weapon slots, and later seasons added more factions, such as Crown and Shadow Company. The Modern Warfare 4 DMZ gives out missions through the Bounty Board at the FOB, and its announced intel does not mention White Lotus.

Campaign and co-op

Co-op Raid Episode

A Raid Episode is a long three-player co-op mission in Modern Warfare II Special Ops. It has nothing to do with Warzone matchmaking. The first Raid, Episode 01: Atomgrad, launched on 14 December 2022 with Season 1 Reloaded and sends you in as Price, Farah and Gaz into an underground bunker in search of Echo Team. Episode 02 arrived with Season 02 Reloaded on 15 March 2023 and has the team track down and secure a warhead.

Raids were first gated behind Raid Assignments, challenges you had to finish to get access. From Season 02 Reloaded, Activision opened them to anyone who owns Modern Warfare II. Raids need three players, voice communication and puzzle solving, which is why they feel different from normal Special Ops missions. This content is Modern Warfare II only.

Competitive community terms

GA List

GA stands for Gentlemen's Agreement. The GA list is the set of weapons, attachments, perks and mechanics that Call of Duty League pros agree not to use even though the official ruleset allows them. It is not an in-game item and not a developer rule.

Esports coverage describes how it works: the league does not enforce it, so enforcement is social, and teams that break it risk being refused scrims. The list is agreed between the league's 12 teams and rebuilt for every new game, since each release brings its own overpowered items. Snaking, bobbing the camera up and down to make your character hard to read, is a long-running example that pros have publicly agreed to stop. For the related term, see Gentleman's Agreement in the Settings, Ranked & Anti-Cheat glossary.

Tips

Check which game a guide covers before copying a loadout or route. A Warzone 2.0 contract list is not a Black Ops 6 list, and Modern Warfare 4 integration on 6 November 2026 can change it again.
Spend cash in order: armor plates and a Self-Revive Kit first, then a Loadout Drop with the squad's pooled cash.
A Most Wanted run is shorter if you loot caches along the way: each cache removes 10 seconds in the Black Ops 6 version.
In DMZ, anything not insured or stored is lost on death or when you fail to exfil.

Guides and services

Our DMZ beginner guide covers the first raids of the older mode, and the Warzone meta setups guide covers loadouts. Onlyfarms also has categories for Warzone, Black Ops 7 and Modern Warfare 4.

FAQ

Is DMZ still in Call of Duty?

Yes, in a new form. The original DMZ (Modern Warfare II era) stopped counting toward new Battle Passes and levels from Modern Warfare III Season 1. DMZ returned in Modern Warfare 4 on 23 October 2026 as a rebuilt extraction mode with the Forward Operating Base hub, and Season 1 on 6 November 2026 adds the X01 map.

What is the difference between Bounty and Most Wanted?

A Bounty makes you the hunter of a marked enemy. Most Wanted marks you as the target for every squad, and surviving the timer pays cash and brings your dead squadmates back. Both are Warzone contracts and both were on the Black Ops 6 Season 1 list.

Can I still use the Safecracker contract?

It was a Warzone 2.0 contract on Al Mazrah. It is not on the Black Ops 6 Season 1 contract list, and no later season has been confirmed to bring it back, so check the contract icons on the tactical map in your own match.

Is Birdseye in Modern Warfare 4?

Yes. Birdseye is a Perk 2 option in Modern Warfare 4 and unlocks at level 40. It zooms out the minimap and makes UAV and radar pings show the direction enemies face.

Is a GA list a rule I can be banned for breaking?

No. It is an informal agreement between pro teams, and the league does not enforce it. In public matches nothing stops you from using a GA item.

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