Call of Duty: Warzone | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | |
Publisher(s) | Activision |
Series | Call of Duty |
Engine | IW 9.0 |
Platform(s) | |
Release | November 16, 2022 |
Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
Call of Duty: Warzone [b] is a 2022 free-to-play first-person shooter game developed by Infinity Ward and Raven Software for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. [2] It is a successor to 2020's Call of Duty: Warzone . The game is a part of 2022's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II , 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III , and 2024's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 . Warzone itself is free to download and does not require purchase of any of the parent titles. It was introduced during Season 1 of Modern Warfare II content. The game features cross-platform play and a new extraction mode titled DMZ. [3]
Warzone (2022) was officially revealed by Activision at the "Call of Duty Next" event in September 2022, and was released on November 16, 2022 as part of a single cross-game launcher known as Call of Duty HQ, which would be later be known as the Call of Duty launcher. [4] [5] [6]
Similar to its predecessor, in Warzone (2022)'s primary game mode, Battle Royale, players compete in a continuously shrinking map to be the last player(s) remaining. Players parachute onto a large game map, where they encounter and eliminate other players. Players start with 150 health with two armor plates attached for an additional 100 health. As the game progresses and players are eliminated, the playable area shrinks, forcing the remaining players into tighter spaces. A new feature in Warzone (2022), Circle Collapse, allows multiple circles to spawn within the map, which close independently of one another, before converging into one single safe zone. Like Warzone (2020), upon death, players are sent to the "Gulag", a small-sized arena where killed players battle one another for a chance at respawning into the map. In Warzone (2022), Gulag matches were initially introduced in 2v2 format, and included an artificial intelligence (AI) combatant called "the Jailer", whom players can hunt down to acquire a key and escape, in addition to the traditional method of winning Gulag matches. This change was reverted for Season 2 to the original 1v1 format, while the Jailer is also removed in favor of the overtime point capture system. In-game cash currencies also return, allowing players to buy various items at several buy stations scattered across the map, including custom loadouts with personalized weapons and perk setups. Warzone (2022) features many vehicles such as the ATV, cargo truck, Hatchback, SUV and many more. [7]
During the match, events can happen throughout the game. There are three different types of events: Jailbreak (every player in the gulag is redeployed into the map and back into the game); [8] Fire Sale (items in the buy station are discounted up to 100% for one minute); [9] and Restock (supply boxes are refilled and can be opened again). [10] Only one of these events can happen in a single game.
A new extraction game mode, named DMZ, is also featured at the release of Warzone (2022). [11] In DMZ, players battle against both AI-controlled and player-controlled opponents while attempting to exfil with loot they found within the playable area (also known as the Exclusion Zone). Players start out with a limited inventory, which allows storage of extracted loot from matches; said inventory can be expanded by completing Faction missions, allowing for more guaranteed loadout weapon slots or the opportunity to unlock base weapons and cosmetic rewards, usable in both Warzone (2022) and Modern Warfare II. [12]
At launch, AI combatants were a prominent feature in Warzone (2022), as they defended various strongholds and black sites throughout the main map, in both Battle Royale and DMZ. Players were able to engage in combat with the AI-controlled enemies in order to seize the strongholds and gain access to the loot items within. Following numerous balancing updates and changes, AI combatants were completely removed from Battle Royale modes in Modern Warfare II Season 4.
In Modern Warfare II Season 2, Warzone (2022) featured the return of Resurgence, a game mode in which player combatants can respawn and rejoin matches after being killed, provided that at least one member in their squad remains alive following a short cooldown period. Squad members can help reduce the cooldown period by completing contracts or killing other players. [13]
Modern Warfare II Season 3 reintroduced the game mode Plunder, in which teams have to search for stacks of Cash scattered around the map to accumulate $2 million. Once found or if time is almost up, the game goes into overtime, multiplying all Cash sums twice. The team who has gathered the most money when the clock runs out is declared the winner. Players respawn automatically in this game mode. In addition, for the first time, a Ranked competitive mode was introduced in Warzone, developed in partnership with Treyarch using the official Call of Duty League ruleset. [14]
At launch, Unhinged was introduced. Unhinged was a limited-time game mode in Warzone 2.0 where teams can request enemy players to join their squad. Once all the players have accepted, a new HUD will be shown on their screen, showing their new teammates and all the allies can be declared winner if they are the last team standing. Six players is the max that can be part of the squad. Unhinged was removed following the arrival of the Season 01 Reloaded patch. [15]
Warzone Bootcamp is a training mode featured in the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, which was introduced during the game's third season. this mode was created to help players familiarize themselves with the gameplay mechanics and controls of Warzone 2.0. It takes place on the Urzikstan map. There are a total of 44 players in this game mode, 24 of them being bots. [16]
In addition to shared progression with Modern Warfare II,Modern Warfare III, and Black Ops 6, Warzone (2022) also features shared cross-platform progression and social aspects with Warzone Mobile , a new Warzone title made exclusively for mobile devices. [17]
Similar to its predecessor, Warzone (2022)'s story is told via cinematics included at the launch of each seasonal update. Al Mazrah is featured in the campaign mode for Modern Warfare II, while Amsterdam, which the map Vondel is heavily based on, also briefly appears in several missions. Urzikstan is a setting featured across the Modern Warfare reboot series, with several POIs featured in Modern Warfare III campaign and multiplayer levels.
The DMZ mode also features story missions, which revolve around various factions all vying for control of Al Mazrah, Ashika Island and Vondel. At launch, three factions were introduced: White Lotus, Legion, and Black Mous. A fourth faction, Crown, was introduced in Season 2, with missions exclusive to Modern Warfare II owners, and a fifth faction, REDACTED, was later introduced in Season 3 for all players. In Season 4, Legion and REDACTED factions were removed, followed by the introduction of a new faction, Phalanx. In Season 5, Shadow Company - implied to be the REDACTED faction from Season 3 - was added as a new faction.
Following Task Force 141's successful operation in taking down Iranian Quds Force Major Hassan Zyani, CIA Station Chief Kate Laswell begins to oversee new covert missions taking place in the city of Al Mazrah, in order to undermine the activities of the terrorist organization Al-Qatala. At the same time, several private military companies begin to move into Al Mazrah, looking to wrestle control of the city from AQ forces as well as each other. At some point, the Shadow Company PMC was discovered to be running new operations in Al Mazrah, as well as the Asia-Pacific island Ashika and the elusive underground facility Building 21.
In April 2023, Valeria Garza, leader of the Mexican Las Almas Cartel, manages to escape captivity, having been imprisoned for several months by the Mexican Special Forces squad Los Vaqueros. She then gathers the cartel to Al Mazrah to conduct new activities. Valeria's former comrade and Los Vaqueros leader, Alejandro Vargas, is requested by Laswell to infiltrate Al Mazrah and apprehend Valeria. Several months later, a terrorist attack was reported in the city of Vondel, Netherlands, with a mysterious special forces group calling themselves the Peacekeepers seizing control of the city following its evacuation. Laswell establishes contact with the Black Mous organization and partners with them in order to investigate the Peacekeepers and learn their true intentions. They soon learn that the Peacekeepers are actually a Russian PMC known as the Konni Group, and the attack on Vondel was orchestrated by them.
In August 2023, the leaders of the Urzikstan Liberation Force, Farah Karim and Alex Keller, meet with Shadow Company Commander Phillip Graves, who had faked his death since his last encounter with Task Force 141 in Las Almas, Mexico. Graves proposes an alliance between the Shadows and ULF in order to prevent an invasion in Al Mazrah from the Konni Group. Later that month, Graves, under the command of General Shepherd, leads an assault on the Konni-occupied Zaya Observatory in Al Mazrah as part of Operation: Rogue Arsenal. After destroying the observatory with missile launchers, Shadow Company locates an underground weapons facility containing chemical weaponry and begin extracting gas canisters, but are forced to exfil when the tunnels begin collapsing. However, per the orders of the Ultranationalist terrorist Vladimir Makarov, Konni operatives masquerading as Shadow soldiers managed to infiltrate their ranks and hijack the planes carrying the gas shipment, rendering the operation a failure.
In December 2023, Konni's second-in-command, Andrei Nolan, manages to escape captivity, after his previous defeat at the hands of Task Force 141. He resumes his duties and rallies Konni troops to the city of Zaravan, Urzikstan for a new operation. In response, Graves employs Shadow Company operatives, as well as other independent contractors, to Zaravan to conduct missions against Konni. Several months later, Konni occupies a Mediterranean island, known as "Fortune's Keep", and sets up a research facility underneath its surface. However, an earthquake occurs, destroying parts of the island and forcing Konni to undertake repairs. Shadow Company and Konni's conflict continues as the latter's operations expand to Rebirth Island, a former Nova 6 production facility once helmed by the spy organization Perseus.
In a flashback to May 22, 2022, Task Force 141 operative John "Soap" MacTavish is deployed to Zaravan as part of a secret operation to secure a chemical bomb threat. He is unable to stop the bombs from detonating, but later learns that additional bombs are deployed globally, including in Tokyo and Paris.
Call of Duty: Warzone (2022) was announced to the public by Activision in September 2022, initially under the name Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0. A new map was announced, described by the developers themselves to be "immense, dynamic and rewarding, and built literally from the ground up with the emphasis on loading up your favorite custom weapon, dropping in, exploring the vast landscape, and having a hell of a good time doing it." [18] Warzone 2.0 was officially released on November 16, 2022 to all platforms.
On November 21, 2022, the official Call of Duty Twitter account stated that over 25 million players played Warzone 2.0 during the first five days of release. [19] In that same month, the peak users playing all at once was close to 500,000 players. [20]
Microsoft released Call of Duty: Warzone on Xbox Cloud Gaming for Game Pass Ultimate members on October 25, 2024, the same day as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. [21] [22]
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
Metacritic | PC: 80/100 [23] PS5: 79/100 [24] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
GameSpot | 8/10 [25] |
GamesRadar+ | [26] |
Jeuxvideo.com | 17/20 [27] |
NME | [28] |
PC Gamer (US) | 80/100 [29] |
IGN Italia | 8.4/10 [30] |
Call of Duty: Warzone (2022) received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. [23] [24] GameSpot gave the game a 8/10 rating. Critic S.E. Doster, argues that the game has made positive improvements to the franchise in some areas, but has compromised some of the more traditional elements of the game in other aspects. [31] GamesRadar+ gave the game an equivalent score of 4 out of 5 stars. Reviewer Josh West, highlights how Warzone 2.0 boosts the Battle Royale genre by adding real time Proximity Chat to the gameplay, enhancing the overall experience. [32] IGN also gave the game a 8/10 review score. According to IGN writer Stella Chung, a new addition to Warzone 2.0 that makes it more unique than other Battle Royale games is the ability to recruit enemy players to your team. This feature not only innovates within the genre but also encourages a mix of diplomatic and strategic gameplay that is rarely seen in Battle Royale. [33]
Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Middleton, Wisconsin, and part of Activision. Founded in May 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel, the company is most known for the dark fantasy franchise Heretic/Hexen, the first two Soldier of Fortune games, as well as licensed titles based in the Star Wars: Jedi Knight series and Marvel Comics's X-Men characters, including 2006's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Since 2011, Raven has been working on multiple Call of Duty games as both lead and support developer.
Infinity Ward, Inc. is an American video game developer. They developed the video game Call of Duty, along with seven other installments in the Call of Duty series. Vince Zampella, Grant Collier, and Jason West established Infinity Ward in 2002 after working at 2015, Inc. previously. All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault while at 2015, Inc. Activision helped fund Infinity Ward in its early days, buying up 30 percent of the company, before eventually fully acquiring them. The studio's first game, World War II shooter Call of Duty, was released on the PC in 2003. The day after the game was released, Activision bought the rest of Infinity Ward, signing employees to long-term contracts. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the Modern Warfare reboot, and its sequel.
Call of Duty is a military first-person shooter video game series and media franchise published by Activision, starting in 2003. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Several spin-off and handheld games were made by other developers. The most recent, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, was released on October 25, 2024.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the fourth main installment in the Call of Duty series. The game breaks away from the World War II setting of previous entries and is instead set in modern times. Developed over two years, Modern Warfare was released in November 2007 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows and was ported to the Wii as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare – Reflex Edition in 2009.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a 2009 first-person shooter game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the sixth installment in the Call of Duty series and the direct sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2009, for Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. A separate version for the Nintendo DS, titled Modern Warfare: Mobilized, was also released on the same day. A version for OS X was developed by Aspyr and released in May 2014, and the Xbox 360 version was made backward compatible for the Xbox One in 2018.
The IW engine is a game engine created and developed by Infinity Ward for the Call of Duty series. The engine was originally based on id Tech 3. Aside from Infinity Ward, the engine is also used by other Activision studios working on the series, including primary lead developers Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games, and support studios like Beenox, High Moon Studios, and Raven Software.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a 2011 first-person shooter video game, jointly developed by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. The game was released worldwide in November 8 2011 for Microsoft Windows, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and OS X. It is the sequel to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), serving as the third and final installment in the original Modern Warfare trilogy and the eighth Call of Duty installment overall. A separate version for the Nintendo DS was developed by n-Space, while Treyarch developed the game's Wii port. In Japan, Square Enix published the game with a separate subtitled and dubbed version.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is a 2015 first-person shooter game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It is the twelfth entry in the Call of Duty series and the sequel to the 2012 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II. It was released on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on November 6, 2015. A feature-limited version developed by Beenox and Mercenary Technology that only supports multiplayer modes was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and was also the final Call of Duty title released on those platforms.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is a 2016 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the thirteenth installment in the Call of Duty series and was released worldwide for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on November 4, 2016.
A battle royale game is an online multiplayer video game genre that blends last-man-standing gameplay with the survival, exploration and scavenging elements of a survival game. Battle royale games involve dozens to hundreds of players, who start with minimal equipment and then must eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside a shrinking "safe area", with the winner being the last player or team alive.
Call of Duty: Mobile is a 2019 first-person shooter video game developed by TiMi Studio Group and published by Activision for Android and iOS. Released as a free-to-play title, it was one of the largest mobile game launches in history, generating over US$480 million with 270 million downloads within a year. Call of Duty: Mobile was published in other regions by Garena, Tencent Games, VNG Corporation and TiMi Studio Group.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is a 2019 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. Serving as the sixteenth overall installment in the Call of Duty series, as well as a reboot of the Modern Warfare sub-series, it was released on October 25, 2019, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.
Call of Duty: Warzone was a 2020 free-to-play battle royale first-person shooter game developed by Raven Software and Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It was released on March 10, 2020, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One as part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) and was subsequently connected to Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) and Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021), but did not require purchase of any of the aforementioned titles. Warzone allowed online multiplayer combat among 150 players and featured both cross-platform play and cross-platform progression between the three aforementioned titles.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a 2020 first-person shooter game co-developed by Treyarch and Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the seventeenth installment of the Call of Duty series and is the sixth entry in the Black Ops sub-series, following Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018). Set in 1981, Black Ops Cold War's single-player story follows CIA operative Russell Adler and his team of agents as they hunt down a Soviet spy named Perseus. As with previous Call of Duty titles, the game also includes a multiplayer component and the cooperative Zombies mode.
Call of Duty: Vanguard is a 2021 first-person shooter game developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. It was released on November 5 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It serves as the 18th installment in the overall Call of Duty series. Vanguard establishes a storyline featuring the birth of the special forces to face an emerging threat at the end of the war during various theatres of World War II.
XDefiant is a 2024 free-to-play first-person shooter game developed by Ubisoft San Francisco and published by Ubisoft. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on May 21, 2024. It received mixed reviews from critics.
Flick Stick is a video game control scheme designed for gyroscopic game controllers. The Flick Stick control scheme is primarily designed for 3D shooter games with the intent of bringing the perceived advantages of mouse aiming to controllers, while addressing shortcomings of traditional first-person shooter controller schemes.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is a 2022 first-person shooter game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. It is the nineteenth installment of the Call of Duty series, serving as a sequel to the 2019 reboot of the Modern Warfare sub-series. The game was released on October 28, 2022, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is a 2023 first-person shooter game developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision. It is the twentieth installment of the Call of Duty series and is the third entry in the rebooted Modern Warfare sub-series, following Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022). The game was released on November 10, 2023, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is a 2024 free-to-play mobile first-person shooter game co-developed by Digital Legends Entertainment, Beenox, Activision Shanghai Studio, and Solid State Studios, and published by Activision. It was released on March 21, 2024, for iOS and Android.