The new Free2Play game from Activision Blizzard, Call of Duty: Warzone (2020), has reached 50 million players within 31 days. It is a huge hit, but in 2019 Apex Legends (2019) achieved this even a little faster and cooler. We compare the success reports regarding the player counts of both hit games on PC, PS4, XBox One.
These are the numbers for Call of Duty Warzone: In April, the success report from Warzone came: They now have “over” 50 million players. This is the latest in a series of triumphant reports about the booming player numbers.
Player counts comparison: Warzone vs. Apex Legends
The numbers become really exciting when compared to EA’s success reports for Apex Legends from February 2019:
- Call of Duty Warzone had 6,000,000 players within 24 hours – Apex Legends reached 2,500,000 players in its first 24 hours
- Warzone had 15,000,000 players in 4 days – Apex Legends reported 10,000,000 players after 3 days
- Warzone reached 30,000,000 players in 10 days – Apex achieved 25,000,000 in 7 days
- Warzone now reaches 50,000,000 players in 31 days – Apex reached the player count of 50,000,000 in 28 days
Update 6.5., 9:45 AM: There are new numbers from Warzone (via gamesbeat):
- CoD Warzone has reached 60 million players in 52 days, reported Activision Blizzard during the Earning Call
Update 5.8.: The next Earning Call from Activision and the next milestone:
- CoD Warzone now stands at 75 million players in 146 days (via gamesbeat)
Update 30.10.: A quarter of a year has passed:
- In October 2020, CoD Warzone now stands at 80 million downloads (via venturebeat)
CoD Warzone refers to Apex Legends for release strategy
Are the players even comparable? Yes, they are surprisingly well comparable:
- Both are Free2Play titles from huge companies. Apex Legends was heavily promoted through Twitch.
- EA paid streamers a lot of money to show the new shooter to their fans. Warzone has also now achieved great success on Twitch.
- Both games were released for PC, PS4, and Xbox One – both were “relatively alone” in the market at launch.
- Warzone has an advantage due to the Corona lockdown. When Apex Legends was released in 2019, the hype around “Battle Royale” games may have been a bit more pronounced than today.
We wrote in February that Call of Duty plans to attack Fortnite by using the strategy of Apex Legends.
Apparently, the plan was to “launch the game out of nowhere”, without much preparation or a typical PR campaign over weeks and months.
Due to countless leaks, it only partially worked. Players suspected months in advance that Warzone was coming and eagerly awaited Activision Blizzard’s official announcement. They did this only at the last minute.
Nevertheless, two months later, it can be said: The plan worked. Warzone replaced Fortnite and Apex Legends as the “Top-Free2Play” game on PS4 in March 2020.
What does the comparison show? It seems that Call of Duty: Warzone had a head start, perhaps because of the big name “Call of Duty”. In the first days, Warzone was at an advantage and faster than Apex Legends a year earlier. Now, however, it is slowly falling behind Apex Legends in development.
Apex Legends did not thrive in 2019 from the “Titanfall” brand, but mainly through excellent word-of-mouth advertising. That was the game everyone was talking about. To be part of the conversation, you had to play it, and that was just a free download away.
Even if Call of Duty: Warzone has seen a drop in player development compared to the start of Apex Legends, the numbers are a massive success. Activision Blizzard has managed to give their Call of Duty: Modern Warfare a second boost.
In hindsight, the comparison shows the huge hype that “Apex Legends” created in 2019. This is not easy for Activision Blizzard to surpass, even with their biggest brand.
This is the important question: It will be essential for Warzone to maintain this success. Apex Legends saw its air run out relatively quickly after the strong start in February 2019. Activision Blizzard certainly wants to avoid this with Call of Duty: Warzone.
These are the important differences:
Apex Legends was criticized for being slow with new seasons and content after its release. With Warzone, Activision Blizzard seems to be charging forward with more power. The next season with significant changes has already started there.
However, in hindsight, the general mood after the release of Apex Legends was somewhat better than that of CoD Warzone currently. This is because of the cheater problem that is currently plaguing Call of Duty: Warzone, which was not as pronounced in Apex back then.
Additionally, the success of Apex Legends for EA certainly came rather “out of nowhere”, perhaps that was why there was little content to follow up, and it resulted in longer phases without new content for Apex Legends. For CoD: Warzone, the success has been planned for over a year and apparently well prepared.
It is surprising that a major topic was always the same for both games: How many people are normally in a group?
Both games started with the trio mode, but fans demanded alternatives: In Warzone, the number of players increased to 4 – while in Apex Legends, the developers went down to 2 players a year after launch.
CoD Warzone will need to stay in the game to rapidly reach the next player count milestone of 75 or 100 million players.
