It looks like Activision is ready to end the grand experiment that is Call of Duty Warzone.
Call of Duty Warzone was originally launched in 2020, as an added feature to the Call of Duty Modern Warfare remake that release the year before. This is a free-to-play battle royale shooter that allowed cross platform play for up to 150 players.
While Activision already commissioned a free-to-play Call of Duty from TenCent’s TiMi Studio Group in the form of 2019’s Call of Duty Mobile, there were some differences for Call of Duty Warzone. It’s clear that TiMi leveraged their knowhow for making mobile games to optimize Call of Duty Mobile for that platform. OTOH, Call of Duty Warzone is intended to be a more premium experience, more in line with the scale of AAA games that Activision themselves makes.
Call of Duty Warzone is one of the biggest free-to-play games in PC and console gaming. However, as we’ve seen, that space is increasingly seeing more and more challenges. While some gamers may see the narrative of Activision mismanaging the live service game to a direction they don’t want to see, the truth is likely more complicated.
Activision poured in a lot of money to keep sustaining and iterating Call of Duty Warzone, and some of the unpopular choices they made are a consequence of having to cut costs. If the battle royale mode is now costing more than its worth, that Activision is incentivized to reduce investment in it, or cancel it completely.
As shared by TheGhostOfHope on X, he claims that Activision will not be making that proverbial Call of Duty Warzone, if Verdansk’s pending return fails to retain current players, or lead to sufficient players returning. When asked further, he said this:
“I mean it’s hanging in the balance of whether Verdansk succeeds or not lol. I don’t know why people think that they can put so much resources into a mode that would be around for 6 years by then and it not retain players consistently enough.”
And this:
“WZ2 fumbled the bag. Not even Ravens fault really lol. Not sure why people are entirely shocked they may not wanna put further resources into a mode that has been around for 6 years and continues to see diminishing returns.”
Of course, Call of Duty players may also remember when Activision ended their experimental extraction shooter mode, DMZ, two years ago. At the very least, Call of Duty’s developers make sure to keep making their annual releases with both thoughtful single player narrative campaigns, and dense multiplayer modes and features.
It may be the case that Activision’s studios will experiment with other Call Of Duty modes in the future, such as a persistent survival game mode, looter shooter campaigns, and maybe even dip back in the well for an arena shooter mode. In any case, Activision, and Microsoft, have other ways to make money with Call of Duty. It wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing if they just focused on making each annual release the best that they can be.
