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Call of Duty Warzone Gulag guide – new gulag rooms and features

A new version of the Warzone Gulag arrives with the new Urzikstan map, now with a variety of rooms to fight in and a unique escape option.

An operator listens for intel above a backdrop of the Warzone gulag.

What is the Warzone Gulag? The Gulag in Warzone is a kind of limbo – you have one chance to respawn if you’re killed in the battle royale game, so long as you can defeat an opponent in the Gulag. Win the fight and drop back in immediately. Lose, and your only chance of redemption is if your team can afford to pay for your life.

Whether you’re new to Warzone with the new Urzikstan map or are returning for the new season, there are mechanics to get to grips with when Warzone Season 1 arrives as the Warzone Gulag has changed once again in the multiplayer game. Veterans might be pleased to hear that the original three-lane layout is back, but now you can spawn in one of a selection of randomized rooms with different goals. While this means you never know what’s waiting for you when you die, we can help with this guide to the Warzone Gulag.

A concept shot of the inside of the Warzone Gulag.

What is the Warzone Gulag?

The Warzone Gulag gives you one chance to respawn into the battle royale game. If and when you are first killed, you’ll go head-to-head with one other player instead of being completely removed from the game. The winner respawns into the match, while the loser gets sent to spectator mode.

If you are playing solos, unfortunately, your game is over if you lose the gulag. In a squad match, however, you still have a chance as long as at least one teammate is alive. If your surviving team has enough money, they can pay for you to respawn at a Buy Station.

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Warzone Gulag rooms

There are now a variety of different rooms you can find yourself in when taken to the gulag. Usually, you find yourself in the standard gulag, but a selection of rarer rooms have a chance to generate instead, such as the cash grab or night vision gulags. You can see both of these just after two hours into the CoD Next stream above.

The standard gulag will appear most of the time. This changes back to the original three-lane structure of the Warzone gulag, giving you the choice to go straight down the middle or take a stealthy route down one side. In a new change though, if both contenders stay alive long enough an ascender drops down into the middle of the map – we’ve got more on this below.

The rare, alternative gulag rooms give additional goals or require different skills. The examples we’ve seen so far are the cash grab gulag and the night vision gulag. The cash grab gulag is as simple as it sounds: while trying to take out your opponent, you can pick up large amounts of cash off the ground – survive, and you take it back into the game with you. The night vision gulag meanwhile has you shrouded in darkness. Be careful, as your weapon’s laser gives your location away more than in the normal gulag, so you might choose to stay in the shadows and shoot from the hip.

The ascender appears on the right hand side of the Warzone gulag in a clip from CoD Next.

Warzone Gulag Ascender

The ascender gives you a new way to try and escape the Warzone gulag. After a set amount of time, an ascender drops into the center of the room. If you successfully get to the top of the rope, you can escape the gulag without having to kill your opponent. That said, it puts you at a disadvantage as your foe could take you out on your way up. If the ascender drops, it’s up to you whether to bait your enemy out and wait for them to go for the ascender first, or try it yourself and hope they don’t hit you on the way up.

Our work’s done in preparing you for whichever Warzone gulag you find yourself in in the battle royale game. The rest is up to you as you can’t take your best Warzone guns into the gulag, so we hope your aim is on point. As you save up to buy your best Warzone loadouts in each match, you can always use those early scuffles for practice.