Call Of Duty: Warzone
Developer Infinity Ward, Raven Software
Publisher Activision
Format PC (tested), PS4, Xbox One
Release Out now
There’s no question of whether it’s a riot. Deeply silly military gadgets spewing forth from humming containers; Cockney accents accompanying your death-baiting dashes from Eastern bloc petrol stations to dilapidated arenas; thrumming ballistic effects and crosshairs changing smugly to indicate you’ve hit the meat of the cranium; knee slides, item pings, punch-ups in gulags and quad bike jumps in gas masks – Warzone is the highlight reel version of battle royale.
No, instead the question Infinity Ward’s free-to-play juggernaut raises is this: how much has been lost in the process of creating this more accessible, thrill-a-minute version of, and it’s unquestionably Infinity Ward has taken its notes from. There’s none of ’s befuddling base-building or cutesy Moisty Mire stylings, and while might well feel aggrieved to see its brilliant ping system lifted wholesale here, Brendan Greene’s legal team must be grinding what’s left of their teeth into paste. Not that there’s anything wrong with setting a battle royale in a fictional abandoned Soviet town in which a military base, a prison, and a secret bunker are within walking distance of tenement blocks, but we aren’t thrilled by the prospect of it any more.
