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Warzone Season 3 event time and what to expect

The Warzone Season 3 nuke event should see the annihilation of Verdansk

An operator wearing a dark blue leather combat suit and breathing mask points her gun to the sky
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Call of Duty: Warzone 

It’s almost time for a new season of Call of Duty: Warzone and Black Ops Cold War, and Season 3 could be the biggest yet – especially for the battle royale. With the release of its Season 3 roadmap, Activision confirms that Warzone is getting a huge map refresh, which will likely be in tandem with an in-game event.

Leaks and in-game teasers all point towards the current zombie invasion of Verdansk leading to its total annihilation, with a new, Cold War-era variation of the map coming to Season 3. The event is being named as Operation Rapid Sunder in Activision blog posts.

This will be the second in-game event attempted in Warzone. The first was back in 2020 to announce Black Ops Cold War as the latest annual multiplayer release, and involved players going into a dedicated game mode to complete objectives and run to Verdansk stadium to watch the reveal trailer. Fans have much higher expectations this time around, and judging from a recent teaser of an event schedule, this will be unlike anything we’ve seen in Warzone before.

Here we look at what might happen in the Warzone Season 3 event, as well as the schedule and timings across the globe.

Warzone event time

The Warzone Season 3 event will begin on April 21 at the following times, depending on your time zone:

West US: 12:00 PT
East US: 15:00 ET
UK: 20:00 BST

For countries in eastern Asia and Oceania, the Warzone Season 3 event will begin in the early hours of April 22.

Warzone Season 3 event schedule

Activision has released a short teaser video that appears to show a schedule for the Season 3 event. According to this teaser, the event will last more than 24 hours, but has four sections to it. This suggests there will be multiple layers to the event, and the likelihood is that some of it will occur in-game and some out of the game or over on Black Ops Cold War.

Here is the teased schedule for the Warzone Season 3 event.

  • Part One: April 21 at 12:00 – 14:00 PT (15:00 – 17:00 ET/ 20:00 – 22:00 BST)
  • Part Two: April 21 at 14:00 – 21:00 PT (17:00 – 00:00 ET/ 22:00 – 05:00 BST)
  • Part Three: April 21 at 21:00 – April 22 at 12:00 PT (April 22 at 00:00 – 15:00 ET/ April 22 at 05:00 – 20:00 BST)
  • Part Four: April 22 at 12:00 – 13:00 PT (15:00 – 16:00 ET/ 20:00 – 21:00 BST)

As you can see, part one of the event will last two hours, part two will last seven hours, part three will last 15 hours, and part four will last for just one hour.

It’s currently unclear what will happen in each section, but part one and part four are leading candidates for being actual in-game activities due to their shorter duration.

What will happen in the Warzone Season 3 event?

While we don’t know for sure, in-game teasers and leaks have all hinted at what will be going down in Verdansk across April 21 and April 22 to usher in a new-look map.

The introduction of the Bombardment easter egg, the missiles now flying overhead, and the knowledge that a nuclear missile is stored in one of the Warzone bunkers means the general consensus is that the current zombie outbreak will be too strong to fend off, and thus Verdansk as we know it will be wiped out.

While this is pretty likely, what we don’t yet know is how we’ll end up on the new map, which according to leaks is a Cold War-era version of Verdansk. It’s doubtful there will be any direct link between modern-day Verdansk and Cold War Verdansk (such as time travel), and it will likely just be a clean slate for a new story to begin.

This will almost definitely involve Black Ops Cold War’s Russell Adler, who is the subject of the Warzone seasonal event titled Hunt for Adler in Season 3. The storyline of Season 2 in Black Ops Cold War suggested that Adler had been captured and sent to Verdansk. Sounds like a rescue operation is on the way in Season 3. Whether this will make up part of the April 21-22 event is unclear, however.

Whatever happens, operation Rapid Sunder is bound to go down as one of the biggest moments in Warzone’s admittedly short history. Depending on how big Activision has gone with this event, it could even contend with those of battle royale rival Fortnite.

Jamie has been with The Loadout since the very beginning, joining in 2019 as the site's first staff writer and working his way up to deputy editor. Wielding a degree in broadcast journalism and a deep knowledge of FIFA and EA FC, Call of Duty, and FPS games in general, he's the go-to guy for tips on how to solve SBCs in FC 24, observations on the current Warzone meta, and much more. He is also currently getting back on the Destiny 2 bandwagon ahead of The Final Shape release date and, while he's not proud of it, is still finding himself hooked on the lunacy of Palworld.