"Call of Duty: Warzone" Is a Contender for the Battle Royale Throne

One of Warzone’s best innovations is the gulag, which allows players to respawn if they can win a 1v1 fight.

By NICHOLAS MORGAN

Call of Duty: Warzone, Activision’s latest free-to-play entry in the long-running first-person shooter series, takes a vastly different perspective on the battle royale genre. By making death more of an inconvenience rather than the end, and top tier loot relatively easy to come by, COD: Warzone has taken the good from other successful battle royales while limiting the bad. This has been key to the game’s astounding 50 million downloads across Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC in its first month after launch. 

Unlike many other battle royales, Warzone’s Verdansk setting holds up to 150 players and is made up of several locations from previous Call of Duty games. The game is constantly updated, and the creators have done a good job staying in touch with the community and accommodating its requests.

The game’s best innovation is the gulag, which allows slain players to battle it out one-on-one for a chance to come back in the game. This makes death less devastating, resulting in a more aggressive play style and more action overall.

Scavenger, bounty, and recon contracts are also a great part of the game because they add another way for players to get in-game money. The game’s store allows players to buy score streaks, armor, your teammate back, self revive, or a loadout drop. Score streaks allow players to drop airstrikes on enemies or call in a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to reveal their location. The loadout allows you to use guns that you can customize in the game’s main lobby. It’s a great addition to the game, though it basically defeats the purpose of looting and makes guns that you can pick up almost useless.

Vehicles are also well-done. They’re key to moving around but can be dangerous, as an RPG or explosive can easily destroy your transport and kill everyone inside. There are many entertaining clips online of people hitting tricks shots from helicopters, running over people, or shooting people out of helicopters. 

Warzone features a few different modes, such as solos, trios, and quads, as well as Plunder. In Plunder Mode, the objective is to be the first team to get $1 million rather than being the last one alive. Warzone’s developers (Infinity Ward and Raven Software) have also said that they will be adding new modes in the future. 

However, there are still a few areas where the game needs to improve. The servers have been terrible at times, causing people to get kicked off or just lag pretty badly. There have been some glitches and game breaking exploits, but the developers worked pretty fast to get them fixed. Additionally, ever since the game became free-to-play, there has been a problem with hackers obtaining mods to give themselves an unfair advantage. This gets pretty annoying at times, but Activision is aware of the problem and has banned over 100,000 players. 

Finally, Warzone’s developers claim that owning the full game has no advantage. However, leveling up guns to get attachments is much easier in paid multiplayer; these upgrades can then be used in the free Warzone.

Overall, Call of Duty: Warzone is already a great game, but it has potential to become even better. There are some small things that need to be worked out. However, the base of the game still makes it one of the best battle royales out there. 

★★★★☆