The merging of Modern Warfare 2019, Warzone, and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War presents a unique challenge for CoD. Warzone launched as a free-to-play battle royale back in March, using the same underlying tech as Modern Warfare 2019. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is launching this month, and will also integrate with Warzone. However, Black Ops Cold War uses developer Treyarch’s own engine, leading to a different feeling while playing. This led to speculation on how the games will merge. An art lead developer at Activision has now added some detail.
To put it straight, Warzone will not shift game engine. Despite Black Ops Cold War moving forward with different tech, Warzone will continue to use the foundations taken from 2019’s Modern Warfare. That means that movement and weapon mechanics, general features, and system compatibility will stay as is for the free-to-play Warzone. This is a welcome decision, as Modern Warfare demonstrated the series’ biggest engine change in years. The tech also suits the more large-scale nature of Warzone, and we’re glad to see that is being carried forward.
The Call of Duty/Warzone merge
However, Activision has still said that Black Ops Cold War and Warzone will integrate. That includes weapon loadouts and operators from Black Ops Cold War being usable in Warzone. Yet, we’re still left with questions on how this will all work. Playing the beta, Black Ops Cold War‘s weapons feel completely different to use than the existing Warzone options. In that case, we expect to see the weapon models themselves brought over, but have different characteristics in Warzone.
This is creating a slightly confusing scenario, but one that Activision clearly deems necessary. Warzone has been such a huge hit that the company wants to carry that forward without changing much. That being said, the publisher doesn’t want to lose the big annual release splash either, and Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War simply has to work well with Warzone.
