How Warzone’s new private matches could change the competitive scene

Exactly eight months after the launch of Warzone, private lobbies have finally been introduced and they could completely change the competitive landscape moving forward.

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Since the beginning of Call of Duty’s most recent take on the battle royale genre, kill-races have been the standard competitive format. With the former lack of custom games, the world’s best players couldn’t all drop into the same match outside of a few Call of Duty League special events.

This meant that players would all be loading into their own separate games. The primary goal was to race and secure as many kills as possible in each lobby. The highest-scoring team at the end of a set time limit is crowned the winner.

We’ve seen dozens of high-stake events following this model in the first year alone. Hundreds of thousands in prizing has already been on the line; HusKerrs alone has already reached the six-figure mark for individual earnings.

But, could the entire competitive scene be tipped on its head by the introduction of new private matches?

Infinity Ward

Private matches were introduced in Warzone’s November 9 patch.

The idea of kill-races only came about due to the lack of private lobbies in the first place. They’ve since become the norm in Warzone. Therefore, swapping away from the format won’t be an easy transition at first if that’s the way of things

With custom matches, the flow of action would be entirely different from what we’ve seen over the past few months. Instead of rushing out with an aggressive playstyle, hunting down every kill possible, it will turn into a slower-paced standoff.

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Teams will favor positioning over eliminations. Everyone will be looking to finish in the top spot instead of trying to grow their kill-count. As a result, things will slow down dramatically until a chaotic ending as the circle shrinks.

Infinity Ward

Private matches would force new playstyles to emerge.

At first, things might be a little frustrating with private lobbies. However, with various settings to tweak down the line, there’s a chance it could soon become the standard for Warzone competition.

Similar to competitive multiplayer, the competitive battle royale scene could implement lists of banned items and equipment to create a proper sense of balance. From overpowered weapons to game-changing streaks like Juggernaut, these could all theoretically be pulled from custom Warzone lobbies.

Moreover, in-game events such as Jailbreak could also be tweaked. With a fine-tuned ruleset in place, competitive Warzone could reach all-new levels with the world’s best players all in the same game.

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Instead of having exceptional players frying lobbies full of casual gamers, we could finally see the most stacked lobbies across the board. With a minimum of 50 players required for the standard BR custom game, you could essentially fit in all of today’s most popular content creators and accomplished pro players in the one match.

Infinity Ward

Everything from weapons to vehicles could be pulled as part of new competitive rulings.

The private lobby feature only just launched in its beta form. There’s likely still a ton of work going on behind the scenes. From bug fixes to implementing the aforementioned settings, this is just the first step.

Could private games truly become the standard for Warzone competition in the future? Only time will tell. Perhaps both public kill-race tournaments and custom matches will coexist for a good while yet. Regardless, the future of competitive Warzone is clearly only going to get bigger and better.