Call of Duty: Warzone has reached its one-year anniversary, and while we don’t know what the future holds, we’ve put together the top five things we would like to see in Warzone’s second year.
Call of Duty: Warzone launched on March 10, 2020 and conquered the world. Throughout its first year, we saw the Cold War unveiled at a live event, Zombies invade Verdansk and Black Ops Cold War and War Zone fully integrate – bringing all Cold War weapons and operators and progression tied to Time .
Undoubtedly, Raven Software and Activision have a lot of interesting things planned for Warzone’s second year. In anticipation, we’ve put together a wish list of the top five things we’d like to see in Warzone Year 2.
5. Frequent changes in weapon balance
Warzone has generally been very good at changing the goal between seasons. However, when some weapons shine wildly over the rest, it appears that there are only a few viable weapons in the game.
Shortly after the integration between the Cold War and the War Zone, DMR 14 and Diamattis rendered all other weapons useless. It took a couple of weeks waiting for these weapons to be nerfed so that we could use other weapons.
To combat this, we would like to see weapons changed frequently over the seasons. Some weapons are completely unviable in Warzone, so having those low-powered weapons reaching the top of the pack would keep Warzone exciting and fresh.
4. More Cold War Black Ops content
Black Ops Cold War has a multitude of Scorestreaks and Field Upgrades that would be very suitable for the war zone. We’ve been using Cluster Strike and Airstrike for a year now, so it would be invigorating to review the available items.
Preventing pushes in the final round with the Napalm Strike, or defeating enemy UAVs and Scorestreaks with an Air Patrol would really undermine the game.
Developers can also exchange the most ‘broken’ field updates on Warzone, Stopping Power Rounds and Dead Silence, for anyone at Black Ops Cold War. This would take away one of the most frustrating elements of Warzone, while giving new players toys to play with.
3. New war zone map and frequent changes to it
It is almost confirmed that sometime during Warzone Year 2, we will be playing Battle Royale in the Ural Mountains. We cannot ignore the fact that a new map is the breath of life that the war zone needs, but it is a fact that it will come.
What we would like to see, since Warzone has moved to this new map, are frequent changes to it. Fortnite and Apex Legends keep their maps updated by changing, adding and removing locations frequently. Although Verdansk changed a little during its first year, the community would appreciate these additions much more.
Swapping off-the-beaten-track locations for classic maps or giving area reviews through live events would keep Warzone alive and exciting.
2. State-of-the-art version of Warzone for consoles
Unfortunately, the console version of Warzone puts players at a significant hardware disadvantage compared to those who play on modern PCs. They cannot adjust the graphics settings, achieve high FPS, or use the long-requested FOV slider.
However, the Xbox Series X | S and the PlayStation 5 could easily produce high frame rates and impressive visuals in Warzone. It would be a crime for Warzone not to take advantage of the power behind these consoles, so we would like to see a new version of CoD’s Battle Royale that uses the advanced hardware of the new consoles.
With a state-of-the-art version of Warzone for consoles, we would like to see:
- Updated visuals
- High frame rate
- FOV slider
Black Ops Cold War has a FOV slider on the consoles, so it stands to reason that Warzone should also have one. It is highly likely that a next generation version of Warzone is in development and, with these features, console and PC players will be on a much more balanced playing field.
1. More live events within Warzone
Fortnite skillfully ran live events that bring the whole community together, and many players want to see something similar in Call of Duty.
The revelation of Black Ops Cold War within Warzone was a highlight of Year 1, and if Warzone had more events like this, there would be even more reasons for veteran and causal Warzone players to return to the game.
Warzone, Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare have a connected story. Seasons ending with live events that progress through this story would be a great time for the community to stop shooting at each other for a minute and get together to take advantage of the latest developments at Warzone.
With the leakage of Verdansk’s nuking, we can expect an insane live event to say goodbye to the original War Zone map. Hopefully, this live event will be a success, and Activision believes it’s worth putting more of that into the game.
To summarize, we would like to see Raven Software and Activision taking advantage of everything that makes Warzone great. At the end of Year 1, Call of Duty’s Battle Royale is in a great place, but if we could see those five things within Warzone Year 2, the game would be even better.
Image credit: Activision