Call of Duty Warzone Somehow Brought Me Back

(Intro)

Call of Duty Warzone has somehow brought me back into playing it, and I don’t know how or why. It’s been six years since the reboot of Modern Warfare, and shortly after its launch, we got this version of a battle royale, Warzone. I remember playing it and being very impressed by how well it functioned, and the new gulag system which allowed you to return to the zone, but you had to fight your way back. It was awesome. And even though I did and still have some personal gripes with a few mechanics and the like, my overall enjoyment when it was new was positive. However, once Warzone started to bleed into future Call of Duty’s and it became this all-encompassing mass of the entire franchise post 2019, it very quickly lost my attention. With each new game, all the old equipment became obsolete, and it was all about the new guns, perks, attachments and everything else. And that is a cycle that has been going on for again, almost six years. But now, with Warzone season three and Verdansk coming back, for some reason I had an inclination to download and try it. And to my surprise, not only does it kind of feel like when it was first released, but it’s fun. Like genuine fun. I’ve spent the last two or three days primarily playing that game if I sit down. And the entire time I’ve been trying to pinpoint what exactly about it feels so good and has rekindled a desire for Warzone. So today, let’s go over season three of Black Ops 6, Warzone in its current state, some of the changes and additions with this version of battle royale, and why I think a lot of people could enjoy this game if they used to play it tons back in the day.

(Weapons feel varied enough)

One of the original reasons why I dropped warzone previously was because of how meta-reliant the game was. If you were not using whatever weapon was the hotness at that particular time, you would almost never win. It was incredibly difficult to go up against something that either had more ammunition, longer range, less recoil; it left such a sour taste in my mouth not being able to use a weapon I built because it looked cool or had attachments I liked. But now in this version of Warzone, that doesn't seem to be the case. There are now so many weapons across three Call of Duty games that anytime I lose to someone, there is a lot of variety across what people are using for weapons. It also helps that ground and boxed loot feels decent across the board. I spent a lot of my time just using whatever I can get my hands on, and almost every weapon is usable. Is it perfect? No of course not, but it will get the job done if need be. Another problem with each new entry into the series is the insane level of power creep for the weapons and their attachments. If you compare the attachments from Black Ops 6 to Modern Warfare II, it’s funny how there are almost zero penalties on any of the attachments in BO6. Something like a sixty-round drum magazine doesn’t impede any downsides to your mobility or aim down sight speed. But try to put the same attachment on a gun from MWII, and you have multiple penalties, which is something I find funny because it’s clearly Activision trying to get people to buy the new game and use the new stuff because it’s just that much more powerful. But I digress, balance aside, the variety seems healthy enough that pretty much anything you build can be used to an effective degree.

(Console-Exclusive crossplay)

The footage you are watching is from the PS5 version of the game. And I think that might be the most critical component as to why this game feels so fun right now. Warzone is one of those games where I don’t always want to sweat at my desk on my computer, and surprisingly, it works well on console. Are there moments of some lag, frame drops and the like because the hardware isn’t as powerful? Yeah, but I honestly don’t mind because of one major addition to console play: you can now exclusively matchmake with only console players. That to me, is one of the biggest positive changes for Warzone. Now, you no longer have to deal with PC players in general, but more specifically, cheaters. It’s been the Achillies heel of this game since it released and has only gotten worse over the years. Cheating in general across the industry has never been more prevalent, but at least on console you are significantly less likely to run into them, which to me personally, is worth the slightly more compromised version of the game. Granted, the UI, load times and the like for Call of Duty is even bad on PC. But knowing that everyone I am playing with and against is on either PlayStation or Xbox, gives me a certain level of comfort. People have gotten Warzone’s meta down with everything; from movement to weapon builds to being the most efficient at finding other players, I’m not saying that console is more casual, but I feel like I can have more fun, mess around and relax more. Which I think we all need every now and again when it comes to playing video games.

(It’s not perfect)

With how much I have been enjoying this version of Warzone and everything that it’s doing right, there are still some things it’s doing wrong. This is a subjective thing, But I have always disliked loadouts being in the game, instead of finding a weapon you want to mod up and then spending the match looking for parts to make it better. That to me is better storytelling for your friends when you have a crazy game and want to relive it with people, instead of just landing, finding one of the many ways to earn some money and then buying your loadout and wreaking havoc across the map. While yes, loadouts allow you to pretty much instantly get back into the fight should you get bought back by a teammate, allowing for much more risky and aggressive play styles, I miss the narrative of finding attachments to make a gun truly yours. This is totally a subjective opinion, and many will most likely disagree with me and that’s fine. But I do wish there was maybe a bonus mode that worked like a more traditional battle royale. This is another really small nitpick, but the omni-movement in the game while feeling fresh and liberating has gotten cost me a couple games now. Trying to run or dive to cover and ending up still standing or crouched. Maybe there are some settings I could tweak to remedy this, but again a smaller gripe in the grand scheme of things.

(Casual mode is amazing)

Almost all of my time spent playing this season of Warzone has been in the causal Verdasnk playlist. What this means is that there are one-hundred and fifty players, with at least fifty of them if not more being bots. Now I know some people might discredit this entire video from that statement but hear me out. Warzone for the longest time, and maybe it still is, and I am just out of the loop, felt like the sweatiest shooter from recent memory. The movement tech, weapon builds, efficient ways to navigate the map to find other players, back in the day it became so draining to want to play Warzone, and then every match get pretty much jumped by a four-man team. I’m not discrediting those players or saying that’s the wrong way to play. If you get your rocks off from sweating in Warzone, please keep playing that way. It can scratch a competitive itch that for many is some of the driving factors as to why they enjoy video games. But this new casual mode is so refreshing; being able to just hang out with some friends, catch up about or day or week, and just take out both AI and players alike. One thing I do really appreciate about this as well is that the AI are sneaky and will ambush you if you aren’t careful. I’ve died plenty of times to AI and it’s always funny when it happens. But their engagements are fair for the most part and are a solid break in between the actual players. Sometimes it’s really easy to tell and other times not so much. It’s cool to have a couple lighter engagements and then off the tail end of one of those you get a real PvP fight. That constant back and forth and uneasiness about whether that’s a player or not is part of the reason I love Tarkov so much. You have to take every fight seriously. And this mode drives home that point. It’s such a good time. Even if it’s considered the easy mode.

(Outro)

Honestly, I miss Call of Duty. All they would have to do is give us the multiplayer for the original Modern Warfare 2 remastered, and even Black Ops 2 and I would be eternally happy. But nope; what it has become has made me so sad. A hollow, empty shell of its former glory; parading its dead carcass as the thing we all fell in love with back in the early 2000’s. So many bad and greedy decisions have gotten us to where we are now. And this version of Warzone has just enough in it to scratch the itch I have had for so long. I’m not going to be buying the new Call of Duty, but considering Warzone is free-to-play, I might as well take it up on that offer. If you enjoyed Warzone in the past but hated how there was at one point upwards of four combined games worth of content in one mode, give this version a shot. Yes, the download is still over two-hundred gigabytes which is insane, but to sink some hours into it, run around a familiar place and just have a more casual experience with your friends or perhaps to new random folk on the internet, it can be a really fun time, for what it’s offering. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on this season of Warzone, if you’ve been playing it, if you play and like the more casual mode and be sure to subscribe for more videos about game modes somehow staying alive after a half-decades worth of content has been poured into it, when it should’ve been long and since buried. I hope to see you in future ones.