Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is just days away from release, and Activision, together with its lineup of COD devs in the form of Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and Raven Software, has finally clarified exactly how Warzone is going to integrate with the new game. 

We've had rumours and tidbits before, but this is the real thing - a full run-down. In effect, it sounds like there are now three prime COD games moving forward and for presumably at least a year.

Firstly, there's Cold War, which will bring its own new multiplayer and zombies experience with its bespoke guns and gameplay on a separate engine. Then you've got the existing Modern Warfare, which will continue to get updates and seasonal content, and has its own arsenal on a newer game engine.

Then in the middle, there's Warzone, which runs on Modern Warfare's engine and will continue to do so - but will receive content drops and weaponry from both games moving forward.

That means every gun in both Modern Warfare and Black Ops will be useable in Warzone, although for now the Perks and Equipment sound like they'll be sticking with the Modern Warfare timeline. 

To make that simpler, all three games will share an experience progression system, giving players 55 ranks to progress through and the returning option to prestige back to the start during seasons. Matches in all three games will drive your overall rank. That's a welcome bit of streamlining. 

Activision explains how Call of Duty: Warzone will integrate with Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare photo 2
Activision

That syncing-up will happen on 10 December, when all players will have their ranks set to 1 and start off into this new world. No unlocks will be revoked, though - it's purely an XP change. 

Black Ops Cold War will also share a Battle Pass with Warzone, much like Modern Warfare has so far this year, which is straightforward enough. 

All in all, this is great news for a web of games that was looking like it could get really complicated - one experience system shared across the titles makes for a sort of shared Call of Duty universe that must presumably have been a bit of a dream for Activision a few years ago. We'll still be dipping into both Warzone and Cold War very soon to see how it all pans out. 

You can read the blog post in full to see every granular detail about how this should work moving forward.