The latest Call of Duty is still going strong with its post-launch support, as you can see from the season 2 roadmap for Modern Warfare here. The game is played to run for roughly a year until the next installment of the popular shooter comes out, and the wait is also on for the battle royale mode that is also coming. Today, we got a good idea of when we can expect it.
We heard earlier about the upcoming battle royale, called Warzone. There’s been a lot of speculation about when this fabled mode will come about. According to VGC, they have heard that you’ll be able to play it pretty soon. Their sources say it’s a few weeks away, coming sometime early next month.
Warzone has allegedly been developed jointly by Raven Software and Modern Warfare developers Infinity Ward. The report by VGC also states that the mode will immediately unlock for all Modern Warfare players in the game’s main menu (which currently has a conspicuous greyed out space) as soon as it launches.
Interestingly enough, the report also mentions that Warzone will also release as a free-to-play individual standalone game, and that it will give players the option to upgrade to the full Call of Duty: Modern Warfare if you get it as a standalone title. It will also “likely” share a unified progression with Modern Warfare, including cosmetic unlocks. All of this is in line with previous reports.
Sources also indicate that Activision will be kicking Warzone’s marketing into gear very soon, and that content creators will be visiting the studio to get some hands-on time with it. As per VGC, Activision hopes to use Warzone to keep players engaged with Call of Duty, similar to Call of Duty: Mobile. They plan to do so through regular content updates, some of which will be monetized. Warzone is planned as a third pillar of the franchise, including the aforementioned mobile title and future full-priced mainline releases, which Activision does not plan on slowing down either.
Quite a few gameplay details are also mentioned in VGC’s report, which claims that Warzone will support for up to 200 players in a “squad-based setup”. The mode will also feature a pinging system similar to the one seen in Apex Legends, the Plunder in-game currency (earned by killing enemies and completing objectives, used to purchase gear, and can be stored in banks for later matches), and a Gulag respawn mechanic (where players killed during a match will go 1v1 against another player and fight for the right to be respawned). Other players will supposedly be allowed to bet on the outcomes of these 1v1 matches using Plunder.
The map will feature “familiar to Modern Warfare players”, including existing Ground War maps like Boneyard, Quarry, and Port, as well as classic multiplayer maps from the Modern Warfare series like Vacant, Broadcast, Killhouse, and Scrapyard.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The Warzone mode will most likely come early in March. As of now, we have no solid details on how the mode will function, but presumably it’ll be similar to the battle royale mode, Blackout, for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
