News - Call Of Duty: Warzone 2. 0 Review - The Final Verdict

Call of Duty just got the newest version of its Battle Royale in the form of Warzone 2.0, alongside the interesting edition of the new DMZ mode. Showdown Find out in our review, but when it comes to battle royale, I'm far from an expert. Don't get me wrong. I've played an absurd amount of battle royales, constantly hoping that one of them would click for me and I'd get sucked into the genre like most other gamers seemingly do, but alas, even when taking the original Call of Duty Warzone into account, the closest I really got to truly enjoying a battle royale was Apex Legends.

Well, Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 is out, and having played quite a bit of it, I sense a change in the winds. Let's get the most basic things out of the way when it comes to being titled "Warzone 2.0." You'd actually be surprised at how little has changed in the transition from the original Call of Duty war zone.

I'm sure several weapons and items have seen changes both sweeping and minor, but the map is certainly new, but for all intents and purposes. Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 is an iterative sequel; it's not as sweeping a transition as the original war zone was from Call of Duty's first attempt at a Battle Royale in the form of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's blackout.

Being iterative is hardly a bad thing, though, and Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 quite easily proves this fact. Numerous studios have worked on the game, and the pedigree and experience of these developers definitely show that Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 has also quite clearly seen what other battle royales have been doing and is more than happy to adapt some of the best ideas from a genre.

But first, I'd like to talk about the biggest new addition to Call of Duty Warzone 2.0: the new DMZ mode, sitting in the same genre as Escape from Tarkov or The Hunt. Showdown War Zone 2.0's DMZ mode acts as more of a co-op experience with some light PVP elements rather than being an outright PVP game like its main battle royale counterpart.

The concept behind DMZ is simple. You either play solo or as part of a squad and drop down into the Battle Royale map to complete objectives. These objectives range from simple things like looting a certain number of containers to more complicated affairs like having to find a new weapon blueprint.

The twist is that you and your squad also have to escape from the map to claim your bounty, while completed objectives and the experience you earn by fighting enemies, both AI-controlled and other players, still count. You won't get to keep any of your sweet loot if you don't escape. The idea that there might be other operators just around the corner informs just about any decision you end up making, be it deciding to use loud weapons and engaging in firefights, making a beeline for the big shared objective on the map, or just quietly looting a bunch of buildings and getting the hell out of there with your spoils.

The DMZ is by no means a unique concept. As I mentioned earlier, games like Escape from Tarkov and The Hunt Showdown already use a similar structure for their core game modes, and personally. I find The Hunt Showdown's pseudo-hare atmosphere, old-timey weapons and tools, and intense boss fights to be the best implementation of the emerging new genre with DMZ.

However, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 has certainly made a strong first impression, and I'm excited to see how the DMZ evolves from here on out. When it comes to the battle royale itself, the best thing I can say about it is that it's just about as fun as the first one. The loop of dropping down into a giant map and scrambling to find weapons and equipment to try and survive opening salvo fights that will have almost certainly started around where you landed is still a strong one, and warzone's more unique aspects in the form of the gulag and its core gunplay still make it a unique experience. When it comes to actually judging the strengths of a battle royale, however, the map quite possibly shares an equal footing with gunplay in deciding quality.

Phenomenal mix of environments

The map offers a phenomenal mix of environments, with dangerously wide open areas sitting side by side with intensely tightly packed pockets of buildings and structures in a naturalistic way.

Now, I have by no means been through the entirety of the map (in exabytes and pixels). I have, however, managed to drop in a lot of different locations over several matches, and I found just about every drop to be unique and exciting. The map also brings with it one of Warzone 2.0's new features, strongholds, and black sights.

Much like the DMZ modes, these new areas feature AI enemies to fight. How it works is simple: over the course of a typical Battle Royale match, strongholds will open up all over the map. Players can take on these strongholds to defuse a bomb; doing so will get them a key to access a black site as well as a custom loadout.

Black sites are essentially more difficult versions of strongholds and offer a permanent weapon blueprint reward alongside other loot that you can use for the rest of the match. Other new additions to Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 are definitely fun, but they don't really do much to shake up the core gameplay.

One of these new features, when it comes to gameplay, is assimilation and interrogation, which both allow for a fair bit of potential in bringing out more interesting and unique encounters. The most fun addition, however, is quite easily the new proximity chat, which more often than not devolves into hilariously petty insults being constantly thrown around.

Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is a strong follow-up to what was already a pretty great battle royale. Rather than bring in sweeping changes, the developer instead opted to make smaller changes that would shake things up on a more micro level, bringing out a surprising level of unique encounters between players.

When it comes to the core of Battle Royale, the addition of strongholds and black sights is quite easily the most interesting new feature. Generally speaking, however, DMZ might be the most important and new addition to Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0's offerings by far. Its PVE-centric approach, while fun and addicting on its own, still maintains an air of tension and dread by obscuring the presence of player-controlled combatants, and its minimal narrative is also an interesting hook to keep players playing. Ultimately, while Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0: Battle Royale still might not be my cup of tea, I'm pretty sure that the games found a permanent home on my SSD thanks to their addictive DMZ mode.

Addictive dmz mode

Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0: Battle Royale is an iterative upgrade. If you enjoyed the original war zone, you'll enjoy the new one.

DMZ mode, on the other hand, is new and a lot of fun thanks to the fact that you're never sure if you're going to run into another player as you try and complete your own objectives.