The free battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone celebrated fantastic successes at its release in 2020, but then lost more and more appeal over time. This was largely due to a lack of exciting content and numerous problems within the game – which can be traced back to a slight misjudgment.
With Call of Duty: Warzone, CoD attempted its first Free2Play title on PC and consoles. And what can we say: Warzone skyrocketed, went through the roof, all the way to the moon. The battle royale exceeded all expectations for publisher Activision Blizzard.
Exactly here lies the problem with the title. Incorrect expectations quickly lead to misjudgments in the business environment. And the critical misjudgment with Warzone: The shooter was supposed to be merely an addition to CoD MW 2019.
“We messed it up” – Developer with an honest admission
The one mistake: They simply did not anticipate the incredible success of Warzone. And it’s hard to blame the responsible parties.
Warzone came at a time when virtually half the globe was in lockdown. In March 2020, Corona was really getting started. No one probably had this on their radar during development.
In a conversation with the press, people from the developer studios Infinity Ward and Raven Software, as well as from publisher Activision, summed it up with the following sentence: “We messed it up” (via CharlieIntel.com).
Warzone was only supposed to last as long as CoD MW 2019 – at most until November 2020.
Then came the change of mind: Due to its great success, Warzone was to continue and take over thematic content of the following premium CoDs. Warzone received all weapons from Cold War and CoD Vanguard.
This led to Warzone losing more and more of its own character. The developers commented: “It no longer feels like Modern Warfare, but also not like Black Ops”.
Then there were the limited capacities. Call of Duty is a well-oiled machine with major annual releases. Developing another big game “on the side” is challenging.
This led to “significant development challenges” and they learned “the limits of the technology used”.
With the introduction of elements from Cold War and Vanguard, they were constantly chasing the mistakes and also failed to produce exciting content at a satisfactory level.
The peak of this development was seen at the end of January 2022. Vanguard and Warzone were full of bugs, and the entire franchise suffered from one mistake.
Cheaters also became a bigger problem during this time. The popular Free2Play Warzone attracted cheaters like a magnet, and it took until the end of 2021 to establish a new anti-cheat system.
Here too, one can draw the connection to the misjudgment that Warzone wouldn’t be so successful. Free2Play games are known to attract more cheaters because the cost of the game is not high when banned.
If they had anticipated the success, probably more would have been done in advance.
The numerous bugs and persistent cheaters caused Warzone to lose many players. The entire franchise lost 50 million players in a year.
What’s next? The successor to Warzone is supposed to be presented this year and likely released in 2023. However, the current Warzone is not being completely neglected.
After the postponement of Season 2 of Vanguard and Warzone, things steadily improved, and many bugs were fixed. However, far from all. But the pace in Warzone has increased – in terms of content, changes in the game, and bug fixes.
Warzone 2 is to be completely rebuilt, thus avoiding the mistakes of the first part.
How the current Warzone will hold up until the release of its successor remains to be seen in the ongoing Season 3. With the most ambitious event so far, you can rampage over the map Caldera as Godzilla and King Kong. The battle royale can show what it is capable of once again.
We also want to know from you what you think about the topic. What mistakes do you think Warzone has made? Can a successor build on its success? Feel free to leave us a comment.
