As a new season of Call of Duty: war zone 2 and modern warfare 2 Arriving, I found myself re-experiencing the same feeling as the 2019 game and its battle royale spinoff.
My dilemma is the same as any discerning shooter fan; I continue to expect more from Call of Duty, as the series is still happy to deliver more or less what it’s known for since the original Modern Warfare. But while it was always easy to write off CoD as a franchise that was never really challenged or needed to change its winning formula, its industry-leading technology and production values are much more difficult today.
Consider this analogy, if you will. Imagine having a powerful PC or the latest iPhone that you only use for word processing and the occasional Tetris clone: there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but many would question spending that much money every year on hardware The necessity of the task may use 5% of its power.
That’s what it’s like to be drawn into Call of Duty’s ever-evolving technology and its increasingly grounded gameplay and aesthetics, only to find it’s all in the service of: 24/7 shipping and camo grinding – talk to us Been doing the exact same thing for ten years.
What frustrates me isn’t this strict adherence to an outdated formula, but when Call of Duty ventures into other genres and continues to bring its existing baggage as if they’re connected at the hip.
It would be disingenuous to say that Call of Duty hasn’t changed in a decade, with all the battle royale iterations, Tarkov Lite DMZ mode, open world co-op, and more. But when you dig deeper and start actually playing all of these games, you realize that all these experimental spokes are just different pockets where more of the same Call of Duty gameplay exists. It’s like using a pan without washing it, over and over; sure, you’re cooking a steak right now, but it smells and tastes like orange syrup and caramel from baking pancakes in the morning.
Call of Duty isn’t interested in charting a new direction for the many modes it adapts to. It stops looking for a way to make its existing composition work within its already loosely defined parameters.
This season brings a major update to Warzone 2 Battle Royale. The initial version of the mode was divided by the introduction of the backpack system, which greatly slowed down looting and gave players more freedom when equipping.
Sure, it could have been less clunky and less forgiving of players who (predictably) kept stacking multiple of the rarest and most powerful items to beat their opponents. But it just needs to balance tweaks and smooth UI flow. It’s not about throwing away the whole system.
The “new” loot system is just the one from Warzone, where items pop out of boxes like candy pops out of a pinata, scattered across the floor in a way that Warzone’s ground and gritty gameplay never seemed real.
Infinity Ward wants floor loot to be important, especially weapons. Admittedly, its solution has been half-hearted, but it reduces how often players get perfectly tuned weapons and gear.
Loadouts can be earned by participating in server-wide events, and all but guaranteed players must fight for them. Those who wish to avoid this risk can still choose to be the first to clear the stronghold of AI guards. While this has its own risks, they may be more manageable. or predictable.
Then, there’s the option to buy primary weapons–rather than entire outfits–directly from any of the buy stations around the map. Even those shops have varying inventories and a limited number of items, all of these decisions are made to push players to explore and engage with the randomness of battle royale, rather than avoiding it entirely.
The second season didn’t build on any of that, scrapping the whole thing and making it work like it did in the original Warzone. Once again, the goal is to rack up enough cash as quickly as possible to be fully prepared for battle, allowing us to return to the mind-numbing predictability of the original Warzone.
Tellingly, these changes, which I never felt were enough to make Warzone 2 an interesting battle royale mode, only lasted a few short months before being completely removed.
There’s even a new minimap for players nostalgic for Warzone’s revived mayhem, ensuring Warzone 2 only serves as a makeover for old Warzone. Sure, you can swim and lean out of cars now, but Infinity Ward and Raven need to find a way to make all these new mechanics and cool tech relevant, rather than simply throwing their hands up and turning back time.
It’s really the irony of it all. Imagine if DMZ created a more accessible Tarkov that also didn’t have killstreaks or any of Call of Duty’s unnecessary baggage. There’s a version of the battle royale mode that lives up to the nature of the mode, more relentless and unpredictable, and it doesn’t just settle for the same damn CoD experience on a bigger map. Maybe breaking the annual release cadence will get us there.