Call Of Duty: Warzone
Developer Infinity Ward, Raven Software Publisher Activision Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One Release Out now
PC, PS4, Xbox One
There’s no question of whether it’s a riot. Deeply silly military gadgets spewing forth from humming containers; Cockney accents accompanying your death-baiting dashes from Eastern bloc petrol stations to dilapidated arenas; thrumming ballistic effects and crosshairs changing smugly to indicate you’ve hit the meat of the cranium; knee slides, item pings, punch-ups in gulags and quad bike jumps in gas masks – Warzone
is the highlight reel version of battle royale.
No, instead the question Infinity Ward’s free-to-play juggernaut raises is this: how much has been lost in the process of creating this more accessible, thrill-a-minute version of the genre, and how much do you miss it? It’s certainly a substantial simplification of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and it’s unquestionably PUBG Infinity Ward has taken its notes from. There’s none of Fortnite’s
befuddling base-building or cutesy Moisty Mire stylings, and while Apex Legends might well feel aggrieved to see its brilliant ping system lifted wholesale here, Brendan Greene’s legal team must be grinding what’s left of their teeth into paste. Not that there’s anything wrong with setting a battle royale in a fictional abandoned Soviet town in which a military base, a prison, and a secret bunker are within walking distance of tenement blocks, but we aren’t thrilled by the prospect of it any more.
The Verdansk map feels geographically just a few towns over from Erangel, but they’re galaxies apart in terms of how they are to play. Nearly every building you enter contains a loot chest with enough kit to give you a fighting chance. Here, it isn’t whether or not you’ve managed to find an assault rifle yet, but whether that assault rifle has an amygdala-massaging word like ‘epic’ and an impressive rarity colour attached. Equipment and ammo are plentiful, and with that sense of inhabiting and controlling a large kitchen appliance that’s intrinsic to Arma- based games gone, it’s much easier to shoot people, too. Until the final minutes of a round, even death isn’t the end of the road – you’re just woken up in a prison and made to fight mano-a-mano in a bizarre arena made of urinals. Win that fight, and you’ll be airdropping back into the game as if nothing happened.
One might call it ‘battle royale lite’, were one feeling particularly uncharitable. But the truth is that although death doesn’t carry quite the same consequence here, all the other fascinating wrinkles of the genre – baiting other players, choosing your fights, being in the right place at the right time – carry over perfectly. This being Call Of Duty’s second stab at the genre after the tepid Blackout mode in 2018’s Black Ops IIII, lessons have obviously been learned and applied.
It’s also a game with the dizzying array of unlockables you’d expect from a free-to-play Call Of Duty, delivered in a manner you wouldn’t. In the opening hours of traditional COD multiplayer, you’re not the consumer but the product. Your job is to be killed until the teethmarks in your controller are more than implied, while players who’ve already earned better weapons and attachments steamroll through in bliss. The best you can hope for is to endure this ritual humiliation for long enough to become the predator, but in Warzone the paradigm is, if not quite inverted, certainly radically recalibrated.
This is because, technically, you don’t need any of the things you unlock. Loadouts don’t arrive with you, but are airdropped to a nearby location several minutes and zone-shrinks in. This means a few fortuitous chest openings near your drop zone or an aggressive early game phase replete with body-scavenging will equip you with equivalent gear to a high-level, many-hour profile. It also forces players who haven’t yet satiated their weapon-lust out from their foxholes, scuttling towards bright red flares which, of course, everyone else in the region can also see. While killstreak rewards do remain bound to your personal progress, and just as seismic as they are in a round of Kill Confirmed, elsewhere Infinity Ward has wisely placed the emphasis on scavenging for gear rather than grinding for it.
The topography of Verdansk, like the positioning of its major areas, works in harmony with the loadout drop system and a steady influx of resurrected players dropping back in to keep players moving and spotting each other. Sitting scoped-in and tensing every muscle for five solid minutes is a valid strategy, as it should be in a genre that has essentially weaponised hide and seek, but the temptation is simply greater in Warzone to get out and determine the action than in its contemporaries. The bluntest instruments to this end are contracts which highlight a nearby squad or player on the map – the hunted knows their position’s being broadcast to an unseen foe, and that unseen foe knows their target is waiting for them. Fairly often nothing happens at all: a HUD indicator turns red to signal imminent danger, and your assailant passes by harmlessly, either stumped as to your location or unwilling to risk a fight. What’s important is that it’s another beat in each round’s story.
It’s a tale not just of survival, but of grabbing cold, hard cash in the process. This final spin on the formula lets you view Verdansk in a different light, not just as a gallery of doors to hide behind but a sprawl of lottery tickets. Money buys killstreaks, armour plates, revive kits and loadout drops, giving an advantage to flush players. The best way to accumulate it? Killing people.
Behind the familiar weapons and machismo, there’s a rewarding new slant on battle royale in Warzone, one that has already captured the imaginations of some 50 million players. Derivative and at times off-puttingly insistent upon drawing your attention to season pass rewards and flimsy unlocks, it’s nonetheless some of Infinity Ward’s most considered design in years, and a sign it’s ready to get back in the fight.
How much has been lost in the process of creating this more accessible, thrill-a-minute version of the battle royale?