Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's early camo grind can be sped up, and you might not have realized it

A graphic showing the DMZ Firing Range in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 showing an operator aiming down the sights of a rifle.
A lot of the camo grind in Modern Warfare 4 is global, so you can get started in the DMZ early access period. (Image credit: Activision)

Now that the early access period has begun for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 DMZ, so too has the camo grind. This year's is very different from the last two Black Ops games, with one big benefit being that a lot of it is global across multiplayer, DMZ, and Warzone.

In fact, you can unlock everything up to the Divergence completionist camo in any of the three modes before switching to each's dedicated Mode Mastery camos.

The early stages can be sped up a little, too. If you're playing DMZ already, you'll be working on the military camos, but you can also work on the special camos at the same time, which you may not have realized.

In Black Ops 7, you couldn't start on the special camos until you'd completed the headshot requirements for all the military-tier ones. In Modern Warfare 4, each special camo has a challenge requirement, such as kills with a suppressor attached, but it also has a weapon unlock requirement just like the military ones.

As I noticed last night, you can work on both military and special camos simultaneously, and this won't just apply to DMZ. I picked up a WZ.55 Striga SMG during a DMZ run and started using it and leveling it up.

Once I'd earned "19 more weapon unlocks" (and I'm not sure how many it needed because it looks like half the weapons I've used in DMZ were silently leveled up during the campaign), I was able to start working on the first special camo and get kills using a silencer. All while still having four more military camos left to unlock.

This is a pretty great way to help accelerate that early part of the grind before you get to the first completionist camo. So long as you pay attention to when the specials unlock and what their challenge is, you can work on them side-by-side with any remaining military camos.

This is just a bog-standard Han 86 I picked up from an enemy with a new character, but I can customize it in the Gunsmith for DMZ Cash. (Image credit: Windows Central)

For DMZ, an essential part of this is to get to DMZ Level 10 and unlock the Gunsmith station at the FOB. Because some of these challenges require using specific attachments, the easiest way to make sure you have them is by using the Gunsmith.

You can add attachments to weapons you find during your DMZ runs at the Gunsmith, too. It doesn't only apply to weapons you buy here. So if you extract with a weapon you don't have a manual for, you can still put on the necessary attachments and work on the special camos. Applying attachments does require DMZ Cash, though, so keep your bank balance high.

Of course the downside to DMZ is that if you die during a run, you could lose that weapon. But any progress is global, and while we don't know what the conversion rate is for progress in DMZ to progress in multiplayer or Warzone on these camo challenges, you can at least get a head start right now.

The final mode for Modern Warfare 4 to go live is multiplayer, and this begins on the global launch date, October 23.


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Richard Devine
Managing Editor

Richard Devine is the Managing Editor at Windows Central, where he combines a deep love for the open-source community with expert-level technical coverage. Whether he’s hunting for the next big project on GitHub, fine-tuning a WSL workflow, or breaking down the latest meta in Call of Duty, Forza, and The Division 2, Richard focuses on making complex tech accessible to every kind of user. If it’s happening in the world of Windows or PC gaming, he’s probably already knee-deep in the code (or the lobbies). Follow him on X and Mastodon.

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