Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera

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.