Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone is a free-to-play battle royale video game published by Activision and developed by Infinity Ward and Raven Software, released on March 10, 2020 as a standalone mode built on the backbone of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.^{1 • 2} Players drop onto a large map, scavenge for weapons and cash, and fight to be the last operator or squad standing while poisonous gas forces the action into a shrinking area.³

Gameplay

A Battle Royale match drops players with a pistol, and survival depends on looting Supply Boxes for weapons, armor, and cash.³ Cash is spent at Buy Stations, the only places where it can be used, to purchase armor plates, killstreaks, loadout weapons, and the redeployment of eliminated teammates.³ Contracts, started at laptops marked on the tactical map, are the most lucrative way to earn cash, with types including Scavenger, Bounty, Intel Station Upload, and Big Game Bounty.³

The Gulag. When a player is eliminated for the first time in a Battle Royale match, they get one opportunity in the Gulag, a 1v1 faceoff against another recently eliminated player. Both start with the same simple loadout, and the winner is redeployed into the match; a losing player can still be bought back by teammates at a Buy Station.³ Raven Software developed the feature alongside Modern Warfare's 2v2 Gunfight mode, reasoning that single-life game modes add tension to gameplay.⁷

Modes. Beyond Battle Royale, Warzone launched with Plunder, a squad-based, respawn-enabled mode in which the squad that collects the most Cash after a time limit wins, including an overtime period once a squad reaches $2 million.^{1 • 3} Resurgence, played on smaller maps such as Rebirth Island, Vondel, Ashika Island, and Fortune's Keep, lets eliminated players redeploy after a timer as long as a squadmate remains alive.³ Later additions include Lockdown, a zone-control mode on Rebirth Island described as a large-scale battle royale version of Hardpoint, and a Bootcamp training mode with up to 20 players and 24 bots.³

Social design. Warzone was the first Call of Duty game to package the battle royale format with cross-play in a free-to-play title, letting PlayStation, Xbox, and PC players share lobbies, and it offered squad-size playlists so players face squads of the same size.⁵ Reviewers noted other borrowed conventions, such as a ping system similar to Apex Legends for tagging enemies, points of interest, and loot for teammates.²

Maps

Warzone's maps have rotated through its life. Verdansk, the original big map, ran from March 2020 to April 2021, followed by Verdansk '84 (April to December 2021) and Caldera (December 2021 to September 2023).⁴ The Warzone 2.0 era brought Al Mazrah (November 2022 to December 2023) and the Resurgence maps Ashika Island, Vondel, and Fortune's Keep, then Urzikstan from December 2023.⁴ Rebirth Island, introduced in December 2020, has returned repeatedly and remained active into the Black Ops 6 era.⁴ Verdansk returned on April 3, 2025 alongside Season 3 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, with quality-of-life changes such as original Supply Boxes, squad redeploy buttons at Buy Stations, and shooting during freefall.⁴

Warzone 2.0 and the Caldera relaunch

With the release of the sequel Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 on November 16, 2022, the original game's servers went offline and returned on November 28, 2022, relaunched as Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera, playable only on the Caldera map with Battle Royale Solos and Quads playlists.⁸ Warzone 2.0 launched with Modern Warfare II, adding the DMZ extraction mode, a reworked Gulag with an Overtime Jailer, and the new Al Mazrah map.^{6 • 9} PC Gamer's review called Warzone 2 a massive step up over its predecessor despite technical issues and a clunky user interface, praising its AI soldiers, social features, and map.¹⁰

The game is periodically reworked around each annual Call of Duty release. With the Black Ops 7 integration in Season 01, Raven detailed a map rotation feature for Battle Royale and Resurgence slated for early 2026, and later introduced Black Ops Royale, a Blackout-inspired mode with no Loadouts, no Gulag, and no Buy Stations.^{11 • 12} Activision has also begun winding down older platforms: from June 4, services for Warzone on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are being reduced, with support on those consoles ending later in the year.¹³

Anti-cheat

Because a free-to-play shooter attracts cheat sellers, Activision formed Ricochet, a dedicated anti-cheat division.¹⁴ From Season 01 on December 4, alongside the Black Ops 7 integration, Warzone on PC requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled, extending a requirement first applied to Black Ops 7, alongside upgraded detection tools.¹⁵ Activision has stated that over 60% of players reported for cheating are on console, while its data indicates nearly all confirmed cheaters are on PC, and it added an "Affected by" module to Warzone's killcam explaining how a player was detected.¹⁴

Reception and competition

The original Warzone was positioned as Call of Duty's answer to Black Ops 4's Blackout mode, and reviewers judged that it adapted common battle royale tropes while giving the series its own identity in the genre.² A UK Competition and Markets Authority report described Warzone as the only Call of Duty title with a battle royale mode, and placed Call of Duty alongside Fortnite at the top of the UK shooter market, with Apex Legends third in consumer spend and gameplay time on PlayStation.¹⁶ Later assessments have been mixed: Metric Gamer scored the current game 2.7 out of 5, crediting the gunplay and map rotation while noting the game's weaknesses relative to rivals.¹⁷ The format has also been imitated, with EA's Battlefield Redsec, a free-to-play battle royale attached to Battlefield 6, described by reviewers as a streamlined version of Warzone.¹⁸

References

1. Call of Duty Delivers Game-Changing Free-to-Play Experience With Call of Duty: Warzone – Available Now, Activision
2. Call of Duty Warzone Review, GameSpot (Alessandro Barbosa, March 27, 2020)
3. Call of Duty Guides – Warzone: How to Play, Activision
4. Call of Duty Warzone Maps (2026) – List of Battle Royale Maps, GamesAtlas
5. Call of Duty: Warzone Ushers in a New Era of Social Game Play, Activision Blizzard Newsroom
6. Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 Tactical Overview – New Features, DMZ, and More, Call of Duty blog
7. Call of Duty: Warzone Dev Opens Up On The Origins And Design Of The Gulag, GameSpot
8. Call of Duty: Warzone, Call of Duty Wiki (Fandom)
9. Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 Tactical Guide, Xbox Wire
10. Call of Duty: Warzone 2 review, PC Gamer
11. Call of Duty: Warzone's overhaul detailed, Windows Central
12. Warzone gets back-to-basics battle royale dubbed "Blackout 2", GamesRadar
13. Call of Duty: Warzone Platform Update, Activision Support
14. Over 60% of Call of Duty players reported for cheating are on console, PC Gamer
15. You can't play Call of Duty: Warzone on PC from today if you don't have TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled, Windows Central
16. Microsoft / Activision Final Report, Competition and Markets Authority (UK)
17. Has Warzone Solved Its Pay-to-Win Problem?, Metric Gamer
18. Battlefield Redsec review, GamesRadar

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026

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