Call of Duty: Warzone Review

You can no longer ignore Battle royale as a genre. Beyond the hype that is seen by Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex Legends, we received another big name that already had over six million players on the first day. The game is Call of Duty: Warzone. Last year, Black Ops 4 already stepped into this battle royale arena with Blackout.

Modern Warfare already had a sixty-player mode called ground war, which follows a similar concept, but it wasn’t a real battle royale in my opinion. Infinity Ward already hinted at this mode for a while, but now it actually released. Call of Duty: Warzone is out and the coolest thing is that they released the game as a standalone game, for free. Yes, you read this right: free! Here is my Call of Duty: Warzone review on Xbox One.

THE STRUGGLE GETS BIGGER BUT RECOGNIZABLE

If you already have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on Xbox One, the update is about 40 GB. If you download the game separately, you will lose about 100 GB on your hard drive. You might think that you will see quite a bit of content in return, but that is not the case. For now, you only get two real modes, namely Battle Royale and Plunder. You can also practice some games if you are completely new to the whole experience.

Anyway, let’s start with Call of Duty: Warzone’s Battle Royale, because that’s why you are here. The game follows a well-known recipe: you will be dropped with a maximum of 150 people in a large world from a large airplane, with the result that your playing environment becomes smaller over time. In this case, this is illustrated by a large cloud of poison gas. The last to remain are the victors.

If you look closely at Call of Duty: Warzone for Xbox One, you can see that the levels are built from familiar pieces of levels from regular multiplayer. This is great because this ensures that you have some reference points. Plus, these are already proven fighting arenas. These areas are connected by large open areas, but you can bridge them with vehicles.

Doesn’t it all sound familiar? Fortunately, Infinity Ward does a number of things differently, which I can tell you are very pleasant. Although the core mechanics are just Call of Duty, a number of peripheral issues are mixed up so that it does not become chaotic. You start with a gun and nothing more. It’s up to you to find weapons, cash, field upgrades, contracts and of course take out everyone you meet.

ADVANTAGE ON THE BATTLEFIELD

I saw that most of the time in my Call of Duty: Warzone review for Xbox One, an RPG or Sniper Rifle will be found at higher places, and shotguns in smaller spaces. So you have to think a bit about what you really need because you can only take two weapons. With the money you earn through contracts, kills or just searching, you can buy upgrades in certain places, including self revive (must have), killstreaks or other skills.

This gives you a serious advantage on the battlefield. If you die, it is not the end, and Warzone is doing something very unique and cool here. You will get one more chance in the Gulag. This follows the well-known 1 vs 1 game mode. Are you the winner of Gulag? Then you get one last chance and are thrown back into the game. Are you losing? Then it may be game over, but you can still ask your squad to bring you back. However, this costs money.

The contracts in Call of Duty: Warzone for Xbox One also give you a good incentive to keep playing. With these contracts, you can earn big money and XP. As said, this money is also extremely useful to give you a big advantage on the battlefield, but you have to weigh what you want to do. Finally, a good change here is that you have a little more health than usual. This is even better when you can find and buy armor.

MO ‘MONEY, MO’ PROBLEMS

Plunder is a pretty cool game mode, but it’s not going to make a big difference overall. The intention of this game mode is that you earn as much money as possible at the end of the game. You are still playing with 150 people. Everyone is preying on the money, including bounties. These are High-Value Targets, randomly designated by the game. This makes players worth extra money. If you kill them, you get that bounty.

You secure the money by having the helicopters collect the money on helipads. But, you guessed it, you have to secure this first. This is very similar to The Division, where you are just not safe until the last minute and can lose your entire winnings. Hectic and incredibly intense. You can respawn and use your own loadouts, making it more in line with Ground War. This is nice if you want a bit more tactically driven play with this large number of players.

The way you play here is very different. Where you usually use a run and gun principle with TDM or Free for All, you should be more careful here. And that makes it a pretty special combination of elements. Although Plunder is a pretty cool game, I assume that Battle Royale is the most important variant and ultimately the mode for which you have to play Call of Duty: Warzone.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

So Call of Duty: Warzone itself is quite big. There are a lot of assets from the original game that are used, so they did not build it from scratch. What is different is the greatness of this game. 150 players aren’t nothing after all, and I must say that starting the games goes very smoothly. In no time you are loaded with 150 people, and you dive into gameplay. It is strange that you can do a practice game in between.

If you are in that practice game, you will often only be in it for a few seconds. By the time the connection is established, you will transfer to the Battle Royale. Weird, and actually useless. What is also useless somewhere, although I get it and looks great, are the videos on the plane and to the Gulag. It is slowing down the game and maybe faster in my opinion. Maybe this is to hide Call of Duty: Warzone’s loading times, I don’t know.

Black Ops 4 (and also PUBG, for example) showed that people with more powerful hardware had an advantage. This was mainly due to the graphic splendor against the weaker machines that can render less and are slower. Now, I don’t know if this also has a factor in Call of Duty: Warzone for Xbox One, however, due to the size of the world and the number of players, you notice that there is some slowdown.

Crossplay is mandatory to play. I saw with my Call of Duty: Warzone review on Xbox One that I played against regular console players as well as PC gamers. In general, this went well, but I am curious if some details will reveal in the coming days, where this may be tested again.

In addition, I was not yet able to find a lot of what they will add to paid content. The battle pass seems to be leading for the time being, and of course the separate operators and skins of weapons. Not a disaster, because I am a fan of this model. There are no loot boxes, and the battle pass is still a pittance that you can earn back.

CONCLUSION

Players who pick this up for free may be more inclined to buy the complete game and get the full experience. Smart plan from Activision if you ask me. The fact that the game is a whopping 100 GB in size is a big downside as many players will have to delete other games or may not even have the internet connection to support a download size of this scale.

There are definitely unclear differences between crossplay, but hey, I did not make the game. But in my view it is on par with Apex Legends, and much better than PUBG. Everything about Call of Duty: Warzone for Xbox One is very recognizable to the Call of Duty saga, and unique elements like Gulag and a variety of contracts give you a good reason to keep playing the game!

Have you tried Call of Duty: Warzone on Xbox One, or any of the other Call of Duty games? What do you think of my Call of Duty: Warzone review? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Are you interested in another game in this massive saga? Make sure you check out our reviews for Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.