Black Ops 7 Season 5 New Weapons: How to Unlock the FG42, Gremlin, Mammoth & Mace (July 23)

Quick answer: Black Ops 7 and Warzone Season 05 launches Thursday, July 23, 2026 (~9 AM PT, the standard seasonal rollout time), and it adds four new weapons. Two come through the Battle Pass — the FG42 assault rifle (early tier) and the dual-wield Gremlin SMG (later tier) — so you unlock them by buying and progressing the pass. The other two, the Mammoth LMG and the Mace melee weapon, are free but gated behind in-game Events and Weekly Challenges you have to grind out across the season. This guide breaks down exactly how each one unlocks, the fastest way to level them for Warzone and multiplayer, and where a boost saves you the grind.

Season 4 is wrapping up and every launch-day lobby is about to be flooded with the same four guns. Here's the plan to have them unlocked, leveled, and camo-ready before the first weekend is over.

What are the new weapons in Black Ops 7 Season 5?

Season 05 brings four new weapons to Black Ops 7 multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone. Per the official Call of Duty Season 05 reveal, the lineup is:

Weapon	Type	Unlock path	Free?
FG42	Assault Rifle	Battle Pass (early tier)	❌ Battle Pass
Gremlin	SMG (dual wield)	Battle Pass (later tier)	❌ Battle Pass
Mammoth	LMG	In-game Events + Weekly Challenges	✅ Free
Mace	Melee	In-game Events + Weekly Challenges	✅ Free

Two roads to the armory: pay-and-progress (Battle Pass) or play-and-grind (Events + Weekly Challenges). The Battle Pass guns are the fast lane; the free guns are the time sink. Which is exactly where most players lose a week of their season.

"Participate in Events and Weekly Challenges to unlock the Mammoth LMG and Mace Melee weapon." — Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 & Warzone Season 05 announcement (callofduty.com)

That one line is the whole grind. "Events and Weekly Challenges" means the Mammoth and Mace won't drop into your hands — you'll be chasing a specific in-season event and completing timed weekly challenge sets to earn them, the same structure that gated the AN-94 in the Season 4 Reloaded Uncaged event pass (see our AN-94 unlock guide).

How do you unlock the FG42 assault rifle in Season 5?

The FG42 is a full-auto assault rifle described in the reveal as having low recoil and fast recentering speed — a classic all-rounder that will slot straight into Warzone long-range loadouts. It unlocks through the Season 05 Battle Pass at an early tier, so:

• Buy the Season 05 Battle Pass when the season goes live on July 23.
• Progress to the FG42's tier by earning Battle Pass XP (playing matches, completing daily/weekly challenges, and using any 2XP tokens).
• The FG42 is then permanently unlocked across BO7 multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone.

Because it's an early-tier unlock, most players who buy the pass on day one and put in a couple of sessions will have the FG42 quickly. The bottleneck isn't the FG42 itself — it's what comes after: getting it to max level to open up every attachment and start the camo grind.

How do you unlock the Gremlin SMG?

The Gremlin is a dual-wield SMG built for close-quarters speed and hipfire accuracy — think Resurgence and aggressive multiplayer, not sniping. It sits at a later Battle Pass tier than the FG42, so it takes more Battle Pass XP (roughly the back half of the 100-plus-tier pass) to reach.

If you're a Rebirth/Resurgence or high-tempo multiplayer player, the Gremlin is the one worth pushing tiers for. To speed it up:

• Prioritize Weekly Challenges (they pay the biggest Battle Pass XP chunks).
• Play objective and high-kill modes for faster match XP.
• Stack Double Battle Pass XP windows if the season runs any.

How do you unlock the Mammoth LMG and Mace (the free weapons)?

This is the part that eats your week. The Mammoth LMG and Mace melee weapon are free to all players, but only if you complete the in-game Event and the associated Weekly Challenges tied to them. There's no Battle Pass shortcut and no store bundle to skip the line — you earn them by playing.

Historically, a CoD free-weapon unlock like this means a challenge chain along the lines of:

• Get X kills with a specific weapon class (e.g. LMGs for the Mammoth, melee for the Mace).
• Get kills in a specific mode (often a featured Season 05 playlist).
• Complete a set number of weekly challenge tiers during a limited event window.

Miss the event window and the "free" weapon becomes a lot harder to get — this is the same trap that made the Season 4 Rosefire and Apocalypse camo grinds so painful (Apocalypse camo grind breakdown). The Mammoth is an LMG, so its challenges will almost certainly demand LMG kills, which are slow and gunfight-losing on a fresh, un-leveled gun. That's the exact scenario where a leveling boost pays for itself.

What's the fastest way to unlock and level all four Season 5 weapons?

Whether you buy the pass or grind the free guns, the real time cost is weapon levels — max-leveling four new guns for attachments and camos on top of the Battle Pass climb. Here's the efficient order:

• Day 1: Buy the pass, grab the FG42 immediately, start Weekly Challenges for Battle Pass XP.
• Grind the free-weapon event first — event windows are time-limited; the Battle Pass has all season.
• Level in the right modes. For weapon XP, high-density modes beat standard 6v6. Our BO7 fastest XP guide covers the current best XP farm mode and the Level 1000 route.
• Use bot lobbies for the free-weapon challenges — LMG and melee kills come far faster against low-skill lobbies than in ranked-tempo pubs.

The math is brutal on a new gun: a single weapon can take hundreds of kills to hit max level, and Season 05 is asking you to do that four times while also climbing a 100-plus-tier Battle Pass. For most players juggling a job and a life, that's realistically a week-plus of play just to be "caught up."

That's the wedge a boost closes. If you'd rather have the Mammoth, Mace, FG42, and Gremlin unlocked and max-leveled without eating the challenge grind, our team runs it for you:

Skip the grind, keep the guns:

- BO7 Account Leveling & Weapon Unlocks — max-level the new Season 5 weapons and hit Prestige Master fast.

- Warzone Bot Lobbies — burn through weapon-XP and event challenges in low-skill lobbies.

- BO7 Mastery Camo Unlock — take the new guns all the way to Dark Matter once they're leveled.

What else is in Black Ops 7 Season 5?

Weapons aren't the only thing dropping on July 23. The Season 05 reveal also confirmed:

• Two new Operators — Spectre headlines the Battle Pass as a JSOC operative, and Cipher arrives on the BlackCell side with three unlockable variant skins.
• Warzone: Drone Labs — a new Verdansk POI south of Quarry, with two large L-shaped buildings and an outdoor drone obstacle course, plus Juggernaut Armor, shoot-down Supply Drones, and the Hunter Killer Drones killstreak.
• Zombies — a new Survival map at launch, with the Warden boss teased for the mid-season conclusion to the BO7 Zombies story.
• Multiplayer — new maps (including a pinball-machine-themed arena) and the return of the Heavy Metal Heroes mode.

For the full season timeline and what to finish before Season 4 ends, see our BO7 Season 5 release date guide. For a rundown of how BO7's weapon and attachment system works before you start leveling, our BO7 weapons explained guide has you covered.

Should you buy the Battle Pass just for the weapons?

If you actively play BO7 or Warzone, yes — the FG42 and Gremlin are Battle Pass unlocks, and CoD Battle Passes hand back a chunk of CoD Points as you climb them, so two base weapons plus 100-plus tiers of blueprints, operators, and cosmetics is strong value. If you only care about the free Mammoth and Mace, you can skip the pass entirely and grind the Events and Weekly Challenges instead — you just trade money for time. New or returning? Check whether the BO7 free trial window is active so you can test the season before committing.

FAQ

When do the new Black Ops 7 Season 5 weapons unlock? Season 05 launches Thursday, July 23, 2026 (around 9 AM PT, the standard CoD seasonal rollout time). The FG42 and Gremlin are available through the Battle Pass from launch; the Mammoth LMG and Mace are earned through in-game Events and Weekly Challenges that run during the season.

Are all four Season 5 weapons free? No. The Mammoth LMG and Mace melee are free through Events and Weekly Challenges. The FG42 and Gremlin SMG are Battle Pass unlocks, so you need to own and progress the Season 05 Battle Pass to get them.

How do you unlock the Mammoth LMG in Black Ops 7? By completing the in-game Event and its associated Weekly Challenges during Season 05. Since the Mammoth is an LMG, expect the challenge chain to require LMG-class kills — which is why leveling a fresh LMG in low-skill lobbies (or using a boost) is the fastest path.

Which Season 5 weapon is best for Warzone? The FG42 assault rifle is the safest all-round pick for Warzone thanks to its low recoil and fast recentering, making it strong at range. The dual-wield Gremlin SMG is the aggressive Resurgence/close-range option. Meta shifts after launch balancing, so level both to keep your loadout flexible.

Do the new weapons carry across BO7, Zombies, and Warzone? Yes. Once unlocked, all four weapons are usable across Black Ops 7 multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone, and their weapon XP and camo progress are shared.

Can you unlock the weapons after the event ends? The Battle Pass guns (FG42, Gremlin) stay available while the Season 05 pass is active. The free event weapons (Mammoth, Mace) are tied to a limited event window — if you miss it, they typically become much harder to obtain until a later re-run, so prioritize the event grind early.