It's only fair that Call of Duty, seen by many gamers as the definitive first-person shooter franchise, takes a shot at dethroning king Fortnite. Battle Royale has been the hottest thing in shooters for a couple of years now. Many competitors have tried to become the most popular, but all of them have failed to keep Fortnight down for long.
Warzone is the latest battle royale game to come out the gate with impressive player numbers and stream views. The game takes everything that is great about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and adds the best of each top battle royale game to create what may be the next big thing.
The Basics
The basics of the Battle Royale genre are unchanged here. Players drop into an area with an ever diminishing safe zone and gather weapons in the hopes of eliminating every other player and claiming victory. Warzone keeps that spirit alive and well, albeit with a few tweaks.
The biggest tweak right off the bat is the waiting lobby. The majority of these Battle Royale games put players into a waiting lobby as the game fills up with players. This lobby lets people wander around, try out some weapons, and interact with everyone else that will be in the game before the action heats up. Warzone is the first one to make it so this lobby is full of action also. Players can practice their aim and kill each other for a little while before the match starts. To someone who has never played a BR before, this seems like a no brainer addition, but for some reason none of these games have had this till now. It grows the hype for the game, and even lets you earn a little bonus exp in the process.
Most Battle Royale games have the match hard-capped at 100 or so players, but Warzone has possibly the largest map yet. With that in mind, they upped the player count to 150. With the team size capped at three, that's 50 teams fighting it out in a huge map filled with cities and forests. There are a few vehicles to choose from to help traverse the large areas, and you will 100% need them at some point because of the ferocity of Warzone's non-safe zone.
Every Battle Royale has an area that slowly closes on the outskirts of the map, pushing players closer and closer to each other until there aren't any players left or there isn't any room left. Each game does it differently, but Warzone has a poisonous gas that is extremely fast killing and fast-moving, so much so that it is among the chief complaints that players have had about the game. In other Battle Royales, the circle closing is much more forgiving, especially early in the game.
The Exclusives
Blackout was Call of Duty's first foray into Battle Royale, but Warzone doesn't take much from the Black Ops 4 game mode. Where Blackout tended to be more lighthearted with its fun emotes and event modes, Warzone is just straight up old school Call of Duty. They ditched the traditional looting and armor system from Blackout and went with a much more straightforward system. You get 100 health and three armor plates, and that's it. As for gear, gone are the days of foraging for a dozen attachments for your weapons. Guns on the ground come color-coded for quality and pre-attached with modifications. Added to the streamlining is the ability to simply walk over ammo to pick it up.
Call of Duty wouldn't be Call of Duty without killstreaks, and there are a couple to be found in Warzone- but instead of earning them via kills or points, you gather money from boxes and contracts to purchase them. Contracts are mini-quests littered throughout the map that reward you with cash and items when you complete them. These contracts add an extra layer to that is sorely missed from the competing Battle Royale titles. Another interesting design decision is the ability to call in a loadout drop. These drops contain loadouts that the player has pre-selected before the match. These loadouts are huge game-changers, as they are the only way to get perks or certain weapons.
Warzone has a lot to offer to the Battle Royale community, and with the game being stand-alone and free to play, it's serious competition for the king of Battle Royale.