Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Hotfix Makes UAV Towers Harder to Find in DMZ

A new hotfix for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has made UAV Towers rarer in DMZ, the game's extraction mode, where squads search a map for loot and try to escape with it. A hotfix is a small, quick update that fixes or adjusts specific parts of a game. Eurogamer reported the changes.

Before the update, a UAV Tower was guaranteed to appear at every Point of Interest, the marked locations scattered across the map. That guarantee is gone. Tower placement is now randomised, so a location may have none at all. The spawn rate has also dropped by 40 percent.

The towers also spread out. Multiple towers can no longer appear in the same area, except in Deadtown. A UAV, short for unmanned aerial vehicle, is the game's in-game surveillance tool, and the towers give players access to it.

The update also changed the Sedative Inhaler, an item that hides players from UAVs. Its effect now lasts 120 seconds, up from 60 seconds. Infinity Ward, the studio behind the game, has said the Inhaler will be changed to work with trait-upgraded UAV Towers sometime in Season 1. A trait is an upgrade that changes how an item behaves. The studio did not give a more specific date.

The hotfix comes after several earlier changes to the same system. Launch patch notes published on 25 October 2026 allowed players to steal back UAV Towers from enemy control in DMZ. Earlier beta notes also stopped multiple UAVs from combining into an Advanced UAV.

Season 1 is also bringing wider changes. Call of Duty's blog post of 2 November 2026 says Warzone Season 1 includes full integration with Modern Warfare 4. Warzone is the battle royale game that runs alongside it, where players fight to be the last team standing.

For players, the practical result is simple. Towers are less certain to be on the map, and they are less likely to cluster together. The Inhaler will stay in its longer form until the planned Season 1 change arrives.