Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera

It’s a Call of Duty battle royale which uses the franchise’s DNA better than ever before. From the first match onward it just feels like home. [05/2020, p.46]

A brilliant battle royale that in many ways copies its competitors but also brings great ideas of its own and doesn’t let you catch your breath for a second. Its connection with the regular Modern Warfare multiplayer mode is just the icing on the cake.

With all the different battle royale games on the market, all seeming to offer the same experiences, Warzone might give the most realistic, precise, and investing performance of them all, but it will need to stay innovative. Sounds of ricocheting bullets, footsteps of the enemy, and a highly detailed world keep it a cut above its competition. I easily found this to be one of my favorite battle royale games to date.

Infinity Ward’s battle royale offering doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it does add systems that keep you ravenous for constant carnage instead of precision survival. With a bit of arcade flash and an intelligent engagement loop, Warzone is easy to enjoy.

Warzone is one of the best Battle Royale out there, with great visuals and fantastic and original ideas… and also some hacking issues. The foundation is incredibly solid, and now it’s only up to Activision keeps updating it and making it cheater-free.

Quotation forthcoming.

Call of Duty: Warzone reaches new heights in battle royale by ditching backpacks and throwing me in a Gulag.

Derivative and at times off-puttingly insistent 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. [Issue#346, p.102]

Call of Duty: Warzone is a shockingly addictive free-to-play shooter. It is highly polished and entirely self-contained, so you don't need to purchase a mainline Call of Duty game to frag your friends in thrilling battle royale action.

In spite of the serious concessions to depth made in the name of instant gratification, Call of Duty: Warzone’s beta remains thoroughly enjoyable. The battle royale formula is intact, albeit some of the aspects that usually make it so exciting and replayable are muted here. I’d love to see a reason to try something other than my Modern Warfare multiplayer loadout in the future given how easy it is to acquire, and think that the armor plate system and gulag are in need of revision. But my time spent in Verdask was still supremely fun even if the how and the why of it didn’t matter all that much.

Warzone is a great sophomore attempt at a battle royale from Call of Duty, which finally manages to carve out its own identity with interesting spins on the existing formula. Its subversion of death and the nail-biting Gulag duels give you more ways to stay in a match, while also forcing you to be aware of your surroundings even after wiping a rival squad. Its looting is streamlined enough to make early moments feel fast, but Warzone also loses some of the messy magic from hobbled together loadouts by letting you drop in prebuilt ones far too easily and frequently. Still, if you're comfortable with Call of Duty's latest iteration of multiplayer antics and thrive in the stressful setting of battle royales, Warzone is a strong contender for your attention.