Modern Warfare’s Warzone (as its reportedly called), is just over the horizon. How will Call of Duty‘s second and much-anticipated venture into battle royale compare to their first though – Black Ops 4’s Blackout.
While there has been no official announcement regarding Warzone, leaks throughout the community suggest it’s an inevitability. The latest rumors tout an early March release.
With such hype behind the game already, this will understandably disappoint those who are eagerly awaiting its arrival. This is already one big difference between Warzone and Blackout; the latter was released on the Black Ops 4 release date whereas Modern Warfare’s battle royale is being added several months after release.
Map size
Previous leaks gave us a fascinating birds-eye view of the Warzone map. It is comprised of the various Ground War and Spec-ops maps which unsurprisingly makes it rather large.
Since then, the Blackout map has been superimposed over it, showing us just how much bigger Warzone will be. Further calculations have indicated that Warzone will be approximately two times bigger.
https://twitter.com/WarzoneModern/status/1229269078042402816
Player count
This will naturally create concerns that Warzone won’t play as fast as it needs to. However, it has been widely reported that Modern Warfare’s battle royale will feature 200 players, which per player would make it the same size as Blackout.
Respawns and the Gulag
In the core Blackout modes there were no respawns – if you died that was your game over. This has been an ever-present criticism of the battle royale format and it looks like the developers have taken notice.
These details are far from confirmed but it appears that unless your entire squad gets wiped out then there is a way to get back into the action. These include:
- Some form of last stand mechanic
- Apparent inclusion of self-revive tokens
If neither of these works out for you, the game’s code suggests you can be carried to the ambulance where you will get a chance to get back into the game via a one vs one gunfight in the Gulag. Now, that sounds like fun.
This is a major difference between the two games. When you consider the number of players that will be respawning this should also make it a much faster-paced game than Blackout, even though Warzone is significantly larger.
More modes
Teams of three can breathe a sigh of relief as trios will be included in the game. Clearly those behind the new battle royale game are confident it will be a success and retain a high player count.
Trios will be complemented by the usual solos, duos, and quads – making four modes to start with in total. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see more modes added during subsequent seasons.
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Weapon rarities
Weapons in Blackout were simple – find them on the floor and pick them up without any attachments. Gold guns (all attachments included) could be found in crates and care packages but, generally, you had to find any attachments yourself.
In comparison, it looks like Warzone will be taking a leaf out of Fortnite’s book with varying levels of weapon. These will range between the following:
- White – common
- Green – uncommon
- Blue – rare
- Purple – epic
- Orange – legendary
Red and gold weapons have also been found in the code but it isn’t clear exactly what they entail at this point.
Killstreaks
There was little to no support in Blackout – if you were to kill an enemy, you’d have to do it yourself. Warzone may look a lot different when on the battlegrounds though, as killstreaks have been found.
Cluster Strike, Precision Airstrike, UAV, and Shield Turret are all included. Hopefully, none of these will be overpowered as it could prove frustrating.
In addition to these the legendary nuke is also there. Whether this will end the game there and then remains to be seen but if its inclusion is indeed true then it will likely have a profound effect on how the game plays out.
Plunder
Plunder will play a big part in Warzone and more importantly, it could provide some players with a big advantage before even starting the game. In Blackout, of course, everyone started the game equally – drop at the same time and start with nothing.
We don’t know if this will be the same in Warzone, but given the addition of Plunder (and the ability “bank your plunder” at an ATM to save it for future games), this suggests you’ll be able to use it during any game. In short, the more Plunder you have, the greater your advantage will theoretically be.
This is another element that fans can only hope hasn’t been overpowered. It will quickly become frustrating if those with the Plunder are able to romp their way through each game. Presumably, this won’t be the case, though.
On paper Blackout and Warzone may seem alike. After all, they are Call of Duty’s only two battle royale offerings.
With all these differences above, however, we can expect the games to play very differently. Now, all we need to do is wait for that hugely anticipated release date!