Over the last five years or so, battle royales have grown in popularity. With the likes ofFortniteandPUBGpopularizing the genre back in 2017, it didn’t take too long for the big publishers to catch on, and realize that a new, lucrative avenue for income had opened up.Call of Duty: Black Ops 4was one of the first big names to enter the battle royale market, and thoughCall of Duty:Blackoutwasn’t an instant hit, the potential was certainly there. In March 2020, that potential was realized, with the release ofCall of Duty: Warzone.
Over the last few years,Call of Duty: Warzonehas become one of the most popular video games of all time, while also being one of the most divisive amongst fans. Though it started out strong,Warzone’s cracks began to show, and with the introduction of the Caldera map, things only got worse. Flash forward a few months, andCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2is announced, right alongside a standalone sequel toWarzone, set to drop later this year. Expectations are high, and fans are hoping thatWarzone 2can live up to them, both in terms of technical factors, and integration withModern Warfare 2.
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How Call of Duty: Warzone Has Integrated Modern Warfare, Cold War and Vanguard
WhenCall of Duty: Warzonefirst released in 2020, it based a lot of its design on the recently releasedCall of Duty: Modern Warfare, a 2019 reboot of the originalModern Warfare. For the first two years of its life,Call of Duty: Warzonehad just one massive map called Verdansk. Verdansk began life with 20 primary points of interest, some of which were settings directly ripped fromModern Warfare’s campaignand multiplayer modes.
Verdansk’s Prison, TV Station, Boneyard, and Stadiumwere all taken directly fromCall of Duty: Modern Warfare, and their structures and interior layouts remained practically unchanged. Both from a development perspective, and a fan perspective, this was a very smart move. For Infinity Ward, this meant that it could reuse assets and focus its efforts on the other wholly original areas, while for fans, these throwbacks acted as neat little rewards for playing the base game.
On top of this, the original form ofCall of Duty: Warzonealso integrated all ofModern Warfare’s multiplayer weapons. Throughout Verdansk, players could findModern Warfare’s weapons in chests and on the ground.Warzoneeven went one step further, and allowed players to use theirModern Warfaremultiplayer classes in the battle royale, which were obtained by purchasing them at a Buy Station. This incentivized players to tweak their loadouts to perfection, and even encouraged them to return toModern Warfare’s multiplayer to unlock and level up their desired weapons.
WhenCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold Warreleased towards the end of 2020,Warzoneattempted to integrate a few key aspects from that game. Along with giving the entire Verdansk map a 1984 makeover, reverting some buildings back to in-progress construction sites and tweaking some other points of interest,Call of Duty: Warzonealso brought a slew ofBlack Ops Cold War’s weaponsto the game, adding them into pre-existing arsenal ofModern Warfareweapons.
With the release ofCall of Duty: Vanguardearlier this year,Warzonetook its level of integration up a notch. Rather than just give Verdansk another makeover,Vanguardbrought an entirely new map to the battle royale. Called Caldera, this newVanguard-inspired mapbrought a range of WW2-themed points of interests, structures, and vehicles to the game. All ofCall of Duty: Vanguard’s multiplayer weapons were also added to the mix, bringingWarzone’s total weapon count to well over 100. On paper, this level of integration sounds truly impressive, but in reality, things turned sour very quickly.
A new map may have been added toWarzone, but that meant the removal of the beloved Verdansk original, and many fans didn’t take the news lightly. On top of this, this integration withVanguardalso led to a host of technical issues, mostly revolving around balancing the game’s unfathomable number of weapons, perks, and grenades. With a constantly changing meta, bugs running rampant, and the removal of Verdansk,Call of Duty: Warzonebegan hemorrhaging players.
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How Call of Duty: Warzone 2 Can Integrate Modern Warfare 2
WhileCall of Duty: Warzone 2should certainly integrateModern Warfare 2, it needs to be careful on just how far it goes with it. One of the biggest lessonsWarzone 2should take away from its predecessor when it comes to integration is to bring iconic maps over the mainline title. One of the reasons fans didn’t vibe with Caldera as much as Verdansk was due to its lack of recognizable iconography. With Caldera taking little inspiration fromVanguardin terms of map integration, a lot ofCaldera’s points of interestblended together in players' heads, especially when a few of the locations looked similar to those found in Verdansk.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2should ensure that at least a handful of classic maps are integrated somewhere. If the many leaks surroundingWarzone 2are true, then it may already be doing this. According to infamous leaker Tom Henderson, as well as a few others, bothCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2andWarzone 2will be including maps from the original2009Modern Warfare 2. High Rise, Afghan, Quarry, Terminal, and more are all alleged to appear in bothCall of Dutytitles this year.
It’s also expected thatWarzone 2, like its predecessor, will integrate the mainline release’s weapons and class system. As long asWarzone 2doesn’t continue to add over 100 weapons over the next two years, this level of integration is good, and should avoid the mistakes that its predecessor made.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2is in development.
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