Call of Duty: Warzone was CoD’s first attempt at a Free2Play title on PC and consoles. And what can we say: Warzone went through the roof, over the roof, to the moon. The battle royale exceeded all expectations at publisher Activision Blizzard.

That’s exactly where the problem with the title lies. False expectations quickly lead to bad decisions in the corporate environment. And the critical wrong decision with Warzone: the shooter was supposed to be just an encore to CoD MW 2019.

“We screwed up” – developer with honest admission

The one mistake: They simply didn’t count on the incredible success of Warzone. And you can hardly blame those responsible.

Warzone came at a time when virtually half the globe was in lockdown. In March 2020, Corona really got rolling. Probably no one had this in mind during development.

Speaking to the press, people from developer studios Infinity Ward and Raven Software, as well as publisher Activision, summed it up with the following phrase: “We blew it” (via CharlieIntel.com).

Warzone should therefore only run as long as CoD MW 2019 – a maximum of November 2020.

Then came the rethinking: due to the great success, Warzone was supposed to continue and take over thematic content from the following premium CoDs. Warzone got all the weapons from Cold War and CoD Vanguard.

This led to Warzone losing more and more of its own character. The developers said about it: “It doesn’t feel like Modern Warfare anymore, but it doesn’t feel like Black Ops either”.

On top of that, there was the low capacity. Call of Duty is a well-oiled machine with big, annual releases. It’s difficult to develop another big game “on the side”.

Since led to “significant development challenges” and you learned “the limits of the technology used.”

By introducing elements from Cold War and Vanguard, they were constantly running behind the bugs and also failed to produce exciting content to a satisfactory degree.

The culmination of this was seen at the end of January 2022. Vanguard and Warzone were full of mistakes, and the whole franchise suffered from the one mistake.

Cheaters have also become a bigger problem over time. The popular Free2Play Warzone has magically attracted cheaters and it took until the end of 2021 to get a new anti-cheat system up and running.

Again, this can be linked to the misconception that Warzone won’t be as successful. Free2Play games are known to attract more cheaters because the cost to the game is not as high when banned.

Had it been expected to be successful, more would probably have happened here up front as well.

The many bugs and the intrusive cheaters caused Warzone to lose many players. The whole franchise even lost 50 million players in one year.

Where do we go from here? The successor to Warzone is scheduled to be unveiled later this year and will probably be released in 2023. However, the current Warzone is not being left to wither away completely.

After the postponement of – Season 2 of Vanguard and Warzone, things went steadily uphill and many mistakes were ironed out. Not all by a long shot, however. But the pace in Warzone has increased – in content, changes in the game and bug fixes.

However, Warzone 2 is supposed to be rebuilt from scratch and thus not repeat the mistakes of part 1.

How the current Warzone holds up until the release of the successor, the currently running – Season 3 must also show. With the most dedicated event so far, you can rampage across the map Caldera as Godzilla and King Kong. The Battle Royale can once again show what it’s made of.

We would also like to know what you think about the issue. What mistakes did Warzone make in your opinion? Can a sequel build on its success? Feel free to leave us a comment.