Available since November 16 on the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC consoles, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 was eagerly awaited by the Call of Duty community. Successor to Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera, after more than a week, what is this Battle Royale 2.0 really worth? Is it better than its predecessor or on the contrary, are we witnessing a regression? I’ll give you my perspective as a Warzone and Warzone 2.0 player.
Warzone 2.0, a guaranteed succession?
I’m not going to beat around the bush for long and answer the question quickly, and while this is a classic Battle Royale, yes, in my opinion Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is better than Warzone Calderaon several points.
First, on the gameplay side, we find the same as that of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, without too many surprises to tell the truth, and that’s good. We are dealing with a dynamic arcade-style Battle Royale, without going into extreme things like paranormal powers or other fantasies, at least for the moment.
Side new mechanics, we obviously have that of swimming, which was not then present in Warzone but in Blackout, the Battle Royale of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and which brings a real freshness to the whole. Also, there is now the possibility of clinging to certain walls (I grant you that’s not extraordinary either and sometimes it breaks the rhythm a bit). Here, swimming allows us to walk everywhere on the map, to do some breaststroke and especially to get our hands on secret caches under water.
Moreover, speaking of maps, what a pleasure to discover a new map other than that of the city of Caldera. Here we are indeed dealing with the fictional city of Al Mazrah located in the Middle East, and personally, some of its POIs remind me a bit of our good old town of Verdansk, and nostalgia inevitably plays a role. However, I find that the map is perhaps a little too big because very often there are long minutes that pass before I finally come across enemies. Perhaps the developers should think about putting more players per game, such as going from 150 to 200 players per lobby? Have…
On the other hand, in the novelties that I find pleasant, there is of course the local chat which makes me laugh terribly. Although I’m a gamer who can get stressed out pretty quickly, proximity chat still manages to make me laugh and scare less. Unfortunately, I haven’t come across any players singing Backstreet Boys songs yet, but hopefully soon.
Changes not necessarily appreciated by everyone
In terms of weapons and the whole new supply system/personal class, I was really skeptical when the developers announced that we wouldn’t be able to buy our loadout with our assets., but since at the moment we can’t choose them as we see fit, it doesn’t bother me more than that. Truth be told, I find weapons that are pretty much the right fit for me and play with them, and that way it allows me to mount them that I wouldn’t normally play with them in Modern Multiplayer. Warfare 2. On the other hand, the fact of charging for the loadouts that the game randomly drops on the map, I find that a bit of a shame…
Now let’s talk about the real issues with Warzone 2.0… While I find it good overall and genuinely have fun playing it, there are some points that spoil the gaming experience. first, the TTK which is, let’s face it, incredibly fast. As we were able to report through a news item a few days ago, if the enemy sees us and shoots first, we are almost sure not to survive, even if we are equipped like never before. It is absolutely necessary that the developers correct this point.
In addition, there is also the sound of footsteps which I find atrocious, and even if they have worked on it, I still cannot distinguish the sound of my allies and those of my enemies (I play with headphones of course ) and it’s quite infuriating when I think I’m dealing with a friend when in fact it’s an adversary.
As it concerns the loot and its new system, it is absolutely infamous, especially on consoles. The fact of having to search the bags of killed opponents, take such and such a thing, I find that we waste a lot of time and with the controller, it is absolutely intuitive and fluid. And I spare you the fact that very often, we are unable to loot what we want because everything is bugged…
Finally, I will end with the stability of the servers which even today leaves much to be desired. Between crashes, connection problems, or even “your profile has been disconnected“, I almost pulled out a few hairs in the last few days. The same goes with the chat system acting up. It’s rare that the latter works properly, and if you play like me with friends who are on other platforms, I advise you to go to Discord rather than going through the game’s voice chat.
DMZ, a nice alternative to rest a little!
How to talk about Warzone 2.0 without talking completely new DMZ mode. I’ll be honest, I only did a few games, and I must say that I was a little disappointed with the result.. But as of this writing, I haven’t seen everything in this mode yet.
Nevertheless, I find that it’s a good alternative that allows you to level up your overall XP and weapons fairly quickly if you manage to complete the contracts you selected at the start. In addition, we have the possibility of obtaining several free and exclusive rewards at the end of each quest, and this side is quite nice. On the other hand, even if it is a bit the goal, I find that they have a little abused the number of AI to kill that are in and around the fortresses, but this is only my opinion of course ! I can’t wait to see what else they’ll add next!
A good Battle Royale but which requires some corrections
To conclude, I must say that I really enjoy playing Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0and I find the same sensations as at the very beginning with Warzone first of the name during the confinement of March 2020. For the moment, I have not yet come across any cheaters, and I have the impression that the game has been shaped in such a way that everyone can relate to it: whether it’s the average players like me or the big tryharders.
The future of Warzone 2.0 promises to be pretty cool, but I sincerely hope that they don’t go all over the place, as they may have been the case with the first Warzone of the name which, in the end, did not look like much more by dint of introducing all the Call of Duty games… Moreover, some problems clearly deserve to be corrected, such as those I mentioned a little above, and when this is done, we will have an excellent Battle Royale!