Call of Duty: Warzone Season 5 is just around the corner, but to be completely honest, I’m not all that excited. Sure, the Stadium being re-opened to introduce a new POI to Verdansk is fine and all, but beyond that and some LTMs, there’s really not all that much to anticipate. This is a far cry from Black Ops 6, which is receiving two new maps and two reimaginings – visually overhauled versions of classic maps, those being Casino from BO4 and WMD from BO1. Beyond multiplayer, my beloved Zombies mode is getting a wealth of content via its final map, Reckoning, ranging from a new Wonder Weapon to a Mr. Peeks Field Upgrade. Compared to BO6, Warzone really feels like an afterthought this Season, and what’s so frustrating is that this didn’t need to be the case.
After months of waiting, Call of Duty: Warzone fans received a brief spark of hope that Season 5 would finally make Avalon playable, yet this turned out to be little more than a misleading bit of the Season’s trailer. In the final seconds of said reveal, an overhead view of Avalon is shown, with the setting discussed throughout the footage prior to this shot. With the location being truly massive in scale, it made perfect sense for it to be a full-scale Warzone playspace, joining Verdansk as a second major map. Unfortunately, it seems like this won’t be the case after all, which might just be the final straw that pushes me back to the competition. Sure, I was very much a Battlefield guy during the Battlefield 3 days (and BF4/BF1 to a lesser extent), but I’ve spent much more time in Call of Duty over the last decade – something that may soon change.
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Call of Duty: Warzone Season 5 Feels Rushed – But That’s Not Its Biggest Sin
The teases have begun for Call of Duty: Warzone’s fifth Season, with one of these early looks doing irreparable harm to the modern Black Ops games.
While I’ve tried my best to keep Call of Duty in my ever-growing rotation of live-service games, the Warzone portion of the franchise has grown increasingly less enjoyable for me. As great as they are, I’ve simply grown tired of playing Verdansk and Rebirth Island over and over again, so I was really holding out hope for all the Avalon leaks and out-of-map BO6 discoveries to have a payoff. Not only was Avalon a neat campaign setting, but the notion that it would include POIs inspired by classic maps like WMD and Casino makes me truly heartbroken that it’s seemingly been left on the cutting room floor, as the map could have had proper Blackout vibes – a mode I still see as the best BR experience in CoD history. With Warzone letting me down like this after already leaving me bored for some time now, I’m turning my attention to Battlefield 6 and its long-rumored battle royale mode to help fill the void.
There’s certainly a chance that Avalon is the battle royale map for the BO7 era of Warzone, but it’s odd for it to be teased multiple Seasons early if the plan is to introduce it further down the road. It’s more likely that it was indeed scrapped, and its assets were re-used for BO6‘s multiplayer, just like the Ural Mountains map from the Black Ops Cold War days.
Why I’m Confident That a BF6 Battle Royale Mode Can Shine
Admittedly, Battlefield has struggled in the past when trying to chase trends. Battlefield 2042’s Hazard Zone was an extraction shooter experience that was never able to find a consistent audience, while Firestorm was Battlefield 5’s shot at a battle royale mode. Though it was far from a bad mode, and was actually quite polished, it struggled for the following reasons:
- Battlefield 5’s Firestorm mode lacked the post-launch support of other BR games
- Battlefield 5’s Firestorm mode was full of hackers on PC
- Battlefield 5’s Firestorm was locked behind a paywall
There were other criticisms to consider, too, like vehicles being included in Firestorm. Though vehicles are a key part of Battlefield’s DNA, they can be incredibly frustrating in a single-life setting, and are likely something that would be avoided if the franchise attempted battle royale gameplay again. Fortunately, DICE is likely fully aware of all the issues players had with Firestorm and would know to avoid them this time around, dropping a fully supported mode that has good anti-cheat and no price tag attached. Currently, little is known about BF6’s battle royale mode. It’s rumored to release months after the base game, while leaks have claimed that it will have 36 POIs and a metro system (fingers crossed that this will look and play like Operation Metro).
Obviously, any info should be taken with a grain of salt until DICE confirms the mode’s existence, though it would certainly go a long way to helping meet EA’s lofty expectations for Battlefield. While I missed the boat on Firestorm, I’m eager to see what the series does with another shot at battle royale gameplay, as nobody does large-scale warfare as well as Battlefield. Perhaps the map will pay homage to a number of classic Battlefield locations, letting players destroy the Siege of Shanghai skyscraper, leap off Damavand Peak’s helipad, and visit Wake Island all within the same match. If it can pay tribute to Battlefield’s history while being genuinely fun and fresh, it will do everything I hoped Avalon would have done for Warzone in Season 5, allowing BF6 to swoop in and steal Call of Duty’s thunder.
Call of Duty: Warzone
9/10
- Released
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March 10, 2020
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs, Violence
- Engine
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IW 8.0 & IW 9.0 (Warzone 2.0)
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