Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation DLC Brings Double XP Weekend on May 6

In order to really kick off the launch of the Escalation Map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops, Treyarch, the developer of the game and DLC, has revealed that a special double XP weekend will be held after its release, starting on May 6.

Yesterday, Treyarch and Activision confirmed that their massively successful Call of Duty: Black Ops title would be getting its second batch of downloadable content in the form of the Escalation DLC.

The map pack will be arriving on May 3, as a timed exclusive for the Xbox 360 platform, part of the longtime partnership between Activision and Microsoft.

Just like with Black Ops' first downloadable content pack, First Strike, the companies are also putting together a special Double XP weekend, which will see online matches return double the amount of experience points to players, making progression through the ranks that much easier.

First Strike's first weekend after its release also coincided with a weekend in which Microsoft offered all of the privileges of a Gold membership to Xbox Live Free users, so we may expect such an offer to also be made after the release of the Escalation DLC.

In case you didn't pay attention to the official details that we published yesterday, Escalation will include four new maps for the regular competitive multiplayer mode, as well as a new scenario for the Zombie cooperative mode.

"In Multiplayer, battle it out in "Hotel", on the roof of a Cuban luxury hotel and casino against the vivid backdrop of old Havana; "Convoy" delivers intense, close-quarters combat at the scene of an ambushed US military convoy; "Zoo" takes you on a wild ride in an abandoned Soviet Russian Zoo, with danger at every turn; "Stockpile" pits players in a remote Russian farm town housing secret WMD facilities. For Zombies fans, "Escalation" features a unique Zombies experience. We can't wait to take the wraps off of our new Zombies map, Call of the Dead, a very special creation for all Zombies fans," Treyarch revealed about the maps.

Call of Duty: Black Ops will receive the Escalation DLC on May 3 for the Xbox 360, and later on for the PC and PlayStation 3, costing 1200 MS Points or $15.