Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera

Call of Duty: Warzone turned out to be one of my favorite battle royale games thanks to its smooth gameplay and new gulag feature.

With Call of Duty Warzone, Infinity Ward firmly took hold of battle royale and confidently said: “This is how you do it.” And then they kept going and made Plunder. And they wrapped it all in a package with a brilliant launch model, tearing down barriers of entry and making access to Warzone as seamless as possible for players new and old. Warzone blends Call of Duty and battle royale until you can’t find the lines between the two; familiar ideas polished to a new industry standard for both.

While Warzone might be releasing in a space crowded with other Battle Royales, this new entry into the genre shakes the formula up in brave new ways and provides one of the best multiplayer experiences in recent memory — it’s debatably the new gold standard for Battle Royale.

Call of Duty: Warzone offers a very good gameplay, and a free-to-play experience that's closer to Apex Legends than Fortnite, but manages to keep that COD feels that much loved by gamers.

Quotation forthcoming.

It's safe to say that Warzone really revolutionized the Battle Royal genre by simplifying the gameplay as much as it could, with some great new ideas like accidental loot system or much less dependency on inventory systems worked superbly. We have to wait and see whether Warzone can be a match for big players like Apex and PUBG in the long run, but all we can say is that the potential is there and Infinity Ward seems to be on the right track.

Infinity Ward did a great job bringing all the fun of the Battle Royale modes into the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare world.

Call of Duty: Warzone is a good step forward for the brand, trying to establish itself as a valid alternative to more prominent battle royale titles.

Battle Royale à la Call of Duty: Warzone shows off a good concept, while being more beginner-friendly as well as more accessible than the competition.

Having 150 players slows down the game too much for my liking, but additions like the Gulag and the new game mode Plunder are great ways to keep the experience fresh instead of copying old trends.

Warzone is a fine example of how you can iterate on a formula and improve it, but remove the heart of something by playing it a little too safe. Blackout covered up the surgical cleanliness at its core with zombies and over-the-top items. Warzone has no such crutch, leaving it fighting the good fight, but for no real reason. Overall, it’s fun but it lacks the style of its contenders. Given a choice, I’d go for the wise-cracking idiot over the well-dressed business person every single time, and Warzone is definitely the latter. Classic Leonard.

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.