Call of Duty: Warzone Season 5 Feels Rushed

Call of Duty: Warzone Season 5 is just a few weeks away, and as usual, this means that Activision is dropping teasers to promote the next batch of content for its flagship franchise. Alongside a very short teaser for Black Ops 6 Zombies’ Janus Towers map, which showcased odd plant structures and bodies falling down the massive shafts of the buildings, a minute-long story trailer has been unveiled for Season 5. And though Call of Duty: Warzone players are understandably focused on Avalon, which is shown at the tail end of the footage, those who care about the series’ lore are more confused than anything else.

While it remains to be seen whether Avalon is used purely for some Black Ops 7 multiplayer maps or treated as a full-scale battle royale playspace, what is clear is that the ongoing story has seemingly skipped over its big climax. Season 4 had been building up to a battle between the Pantheon faction and Stitch, Black Ops Cold War’s post-launch villain who had been freed in a last-ditch effort to gain the upper hand. However, in the Warzone Season 5 teaser, two huge details are glossed over. Not only is Stitch nowhere to be seen, leaving fans to wonder what happened to the charismatic masked antagonist, but Pantheon has apparently been dismantled off-screen. This feels hugely rushed and anticlimactic, as it’s like a Season’s worth of storytelling has been left out. However, the bigger problem is that Pantheon’s quiet defeat retroactively makes Black Ops 6’s campaign worse.

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Black Ops 6’s Campaign Leaving Pantheon For Later May Have Been an Even Bigger Mistake Than Met the Eye

While Black Ops 6’s campaign was genuinely strong and contributed to BO6’s impressive reviews, it wasn’t without its flaws. Yes, it may have had some varied mission design, interesting concepts like the Safehouse, and genuine surprises, but its ending left something to be desired. Players were left with a cliffhanger for the BO6 chapter of the ongoing Warzone story, as much like Black Ops Cold War, heroes like Woods and Adler only partially accomplished their objective. Pantheon was still at large, and as indicated by the final shot of the closing cinematic, the group had even infiltrated the CIA. Players were left wondering what was next and who the mysterious character was (it turned out to be the multiplayer Operator Caine, which was a rather unsatisfying reveal in its own right).

At the time, this ending was a blemish on an otherwise strong singleplayer mode, as it felt like players were being told an incomplete story. However, fans were able to overcome that disappointment by holding onto the hope that the post-launch narrative would be engaging and interesting. Black Ops Cold War had taken a similar approach, after all, and while many may have still preferred a more complete tale that didn’t require them to search up the rest of the narrative on YouTube, that game’s post-launch story was satisfactory thanks to Adler and Stitch’s dynamic. Sadly, while it seemed like BO6’s Warzone story was really beginning to pick up, it’s fallen off a cliff just as quickly due to this lackluster Season 5 teaser. This only makes BO6’s awkward ending more frustrating, as it now feels meaningless to have kept Pantheon going.

Black Ops 6’s Campaign Will Always Be Tainted By Pantheon’s Quiet End

Perhaps there will be a proper CGI cinematic released closer to the launch of Warzone Season 5 that shows Pantheon being dismantled by Stitch and gives fans closure, but as of now, this teaser is all fans have to go on. Considering that Pantheon’s fate has been spoiled by the current teaser’s dialogue, too, it’s hard to imagine such a cinematic hitting all that hard if it did happen. Regardless of the behind-the-scenes reason why the story suddenly feels rushed, it does a disservice to not only this era of Warzone, but Black Ops 6’s campaign.

Players who play through BO6 in the years to come will undoubtedly feel confused by its ending, but when they search up what happened with Pantheon, they won’t be met with an exciting cinematic showing how the heroes won the day. Instead, they’ll find a brief line of dialogue and a Tweet saying “Pantheon has collapsed,” with the villainous group hand-waved and defeated off-screen as if they weren’t that big of a threat in the first place. Stitch’s involvement feels even stranger now, with it coming off like the villain was brought back purely to sell skins and with no real plans for him in place beyond the initial comeback. In a way, it would have been better for him to stay dead, as Stitch’s sudden disappearance following the prison break has cheapened his great “death” scene from Black Ops Cold War. If this truly is how Pantheon’s story ends, then two Black Ops games’ stories will have been irreparably harmed, and that’s a shame.

Call of Duty: Warzone

9/10

Released

March 10, 2020

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Violence

Engine

IW 8.0 & IW 9.0 (Warzone 2.0)