Do you have to buy MW3 to play Zombies?

The newest installment of the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 3, has officially launched worldwide. Now that everyone can play the highly-anticipated Zombies mode, some wonder if the mode is exclusive to the game itself.

Unfortunately, if you don’t own Modern Warfare 3, you can’t play the new Zombies mode. Still, you can play the other versions of Zombies if you own other Call of Duty titles.

Zombies has been a feature of Call of Duty since its origins in 2009 in World at War. While the type only appeared in some Call of Duty titles (mainly the Black Ops series), it’s been a staple of the series since. In the mode, you, alongside your friends, will survive wave after wave of zombies. With the help of several power-ups and a wide arsenal of guns, it’s up to you to see it through to safety.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3‘s Zombies mode, called MWZ, diverges from the traditional round-based gameplay for a more open-world extraction style. The PvE mode, similar to Modern Warfare 2‘s DMZ, takes place on Urzikstan and can be used for either free-play or Operation Deadbolt story missions. This is the first Modern Warfare title to include Zombies, not including Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare.

As mentioned previously, you can’t play Modern Warfare 3‘s Zombies if you don’t have the game. Regardless, the latest version to include Zombies was 2021’s Vanguard, so if you own that title, you can play their version of the mode there.