Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has explained why he believes Infinity Ward’s new battle royale title, Warzone, will be “impossible to balance,” especially considering it has to contend with Call of Duty’s regular multiplayer mode too.
Shroud has been playing Warzone nearly non-stop since Modern Warfare’s battle royale was released on March 10, and he’s mostly been enjoying the grind — he even went as far as to dub it “more impressive” than Apex Legends.
Some players have already been complaining about the title’s ‘time to kill,’ which is far higher than similar titles like Fortnite, PUBG and of course Apex, but shroud isn’t in the same camp. In fact, he’s stepped in to defend Infinity Ward.
According to the Mixer star, who was asked about the game’s rapid-fire time to kill during his March 16 stream, battle royales in the Call of Duty franchise are always going to run into “big balancing issues” when it comes to gunplay.
This comes from the fact any developer tweaking weapon power and stats will also have the flagship multiplayer mode in the back of their head. Unlike other rival titles, CoD will always have more than one mode to balance.
“The TTK is too high? I mean, it’s really, really fast, it really is… but that’s the thing, you can’t balance it. It’s near impossible to balance TTK in Call of Duty because their main focus is to try and combine all aspects of the game,” he responded.
As well as battle royale, Modern Warfare has to make sure its vast arsenal of weapons also aren’t too overpowered or too weak in their multiplayer modes, as well as the 2019 release’s story mode, and Spec Ops missions.
“Multiplayer, battle royale, and all the others are kinda connected too, so it’s tough to balance because that’s just CoD right?” shroud continued, before suggesting the franchise’s weapons usually land around the same level of power.
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“Shotguns are gonna win close range usually, SMGs dominate, assault rifles are just like that good balance, and snipers just own… you just have to take it for what it is, that’s pretty much what you do in every Call of Duty game.
“That leads into Warzone. How can you balance all that to be perfect? You just take it for what it is. There’s too many variables [to balance them all],” he added, and suggested again that fans just “accept it” rather than complain.
For mobile readers, the related segment begins at 3:37 in the video below.
Outside of his thoughts on time to kill, shroud has been dissecting the new battle royale over the past few days. He’s already taken a swipe at the game’s respawn system, and earlier said he didn’t like Warzone’s “super fast” gas.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been looking to get better though, with the streamer unveiling what he believes are the “absolute best” perks to pick in the 150-player battle royale if you’re chasing early wins in the new mode.