The two new leaks have provided us with details about Call of Duty: Warzone, the new standalone battle royale from Activision. Youtuber Chaos has released a video where he details the gameplay of the battle royale and shows the actual Warzone in action for more than ten minutes.
Chaos confirms that the battle royale is free-to-play and standalone, and features cross-play just like Modern Warfare.
Call of Duty Warzone is supporting 150 players, 50 more than the biggest player count registered on Call of Duty: Black Ops 4′s Blackout, and we’re told it could even get bigger with time. Gamers spawn with a pistol and get 50 XP for the downing, 500 XP for a kill; there are bounties for eliminating specific players, such as MVP.
The game is said to feature an “enormous map,” where every building has been custom designed to be included in it alone. It is also a mix of classic maps people will get to instantly recognize, such as Terminal, Scrapyard, Overgrown, Broadcast, and new ones.
Explored locations feature Dam, Military Base, Quarry, Airport, TV Station, Storage Town, Superstore, Boneyard, Train Station, Hospital, Downtown, Stadium, Lumber, Farmland, Prison (Gulag, where you get brought if captured), Park, Port, Promenade East and West, Hills.
The leak, spotted on Reddit, mentions it is filled with easter eggs about the Call of Duty history, and that the HUD is showing red dots.
It includes two different game modes – the core Warzone and Plunder, a cash-based respawn mode – and solos, duos, and trios; Killstreaks and revive tokens are in but have to be bought using plunder at stations.
Players can access a very fast looting mechanic, which has been reworked for simply dropping items instead of bags and list of inventory to explore, and have three levels of armor; five plates can stack three at a time.
Vehicles such as ATV, SUV, choppers, cargo trucks, and tac rovers are available to move faster and smoother than Blackout’s across the map, as shown in the video. The weapon attachments can only be grabbed from air supplies as enemies are not dropping them when killed. Custom loadouts are available instead, but users have to buy their kits at stations.
The second leak is even more substantial about the incoming reveal of Call of Duty Warzone, as it is a PlayStation ad including a PlayStation Plus logo and a banner of the game.
Modern Warfare 2‘s Ghost is one of the characters you can get to see on the far right of the banner.
The existence of Warzone is no more in doubt right now, even though it’s not clear how long the wait for an official reveal will be.
Last time we heard an announcement date, it was March 10, tomorrow, and with this video and ad appearing on the Internet, there’s a chance that turns out to be correct.
While it might look a sudden change in the Call of Duty strategy, free-to-play is not going to be Activision’s sole focus for the future.
The more “premium” experiences are in the works for the franchise, meaning that core paid games are still going to be released every year; in fact, rumors have revealed there could already be a new Black Ops title in development at Treyarch.
