Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 – by extension, modern warfare 2 – Has a great battle pass. This is one of the best I’ve seen in the past few years since Fortnite popularized monetization methods, and we’ve seen reward-based progression incentives proliferate across the industry. Unlike other battle passes we’ve seen, players have a ton of control over what to unlock and when, meaning we’ll all start getting different items at different times, and we can prioritize certain items over others.
For example, if you primarily play as Operator Calisto and want to get more skins for the French-Hispanic descendant of the last royal before the French Republic, you can choose to do so. You can omit certain weapon skins or unlock them during the process of acquiring new operator skins, but that’s your choice. You are in control. You can choose where to spend tokens in your battle pass.
Isn’t this a better setup than Overwatch 2? Is Overwatch 2 the latest game to draw complaints from users over the over-monetization and slowness of its battle pass? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say “Hey, I want more guns!” And be able to start working to unlock more guns? I know that when I start thinking about the slowly forming Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 metadata, I want to have as many options as possible as soon as possible. Unlocking a “professionally tuned” shotgun to take me into my new Shoot House playlist has been a dream of mine. Learn, Blizzard; your Activision buddies are embarrassing you.
And – it’s important to remember – this is only Season 1. Warzone 2.0 and Modern Warfare 2 were the first attempts at this. As it stands, there are 20 “Battle Zones,” each with five rewards. There’s also a rewards area (marked A0 on the map) that unlocks an additional five rewards (including Season 1’s headline operator Zeus) if you buy the Battle Pass. You can play for free, but if you choose to do so, your bonus tracks will be severely limited; this is normal in any game with a battle pass set up, though.
What I really admire is the addition of the Victory Sector; the final area where you can break barriers when you’ve completed all 20 areas of the Battle Pass. This particular end zone rewards players with a golden “Olympus King” model of Zeus, a new M4 weapon blueprint called “Mortal’s Bane” (which looks silly, by the way), and 300 COD points.
One last note – this is important. I’ve played a lot of Modern Warfare 2 over the past few weeks, and since the battle pass went live earlier this week, I’ve been struck by Activision’s willingness to give away premium currency. There’s a bundle I’ve come across in the store – Tactical Human 1.0 with the Tracksuit Nova skin and some cool weapons – worth 1800 coins. I now have 1600 of them…all from Battle Pass.
Compared to Overwatch 2, it’s painless and great value for money. Otherwise I’d never set foot in the CoD shop (I don’t care too much about skins, no matter what this page would have you believe) but here I am – open the shop and browse between matches because I have some spare coins that would otherwise be wasted.
All this for less than £9 with a Battle Pass? it’s great. Yes, the token earning process you need to go through in order to actually unlock items can be a bit slow here and there, but it’s sped up between Warzone and Modern Warfare 2’s objectives, and when you bounce between the two Provides a nice rhythmic pattern… I really can’t complain.
I’m currently working on MultiVersus, Overwatch 2, Marvel Snap, and Call of Duty Battle Pass – there’s a lot vying for my attention (in addition to no fewer than three games that are about to be reviewed). I keep coming back to Modern Warfare 2. This means a lot to me. Activision has a lot of mistakes, but this… it’s probably the best thing it’s done in a while.
