Warzone is not Call of Duty‘s first Battle Royale game mode, Black Ops 4 Blackout was. However, Blackout felt like an addition to the game in order to ride the BR wave, and in a way it was; unlike Fortnite and Apex Legends, you had to pay for the full game in order to play. Part of what has made these games so successful is the Fortnite model of a free-to-play game with the use of real money to buy a battle pass and cosmetic upgrades. This is the model that Apex followed, and Blackout did not. Activision learned from this mistake by making Warzone free, and separate from the main game (even though you have to install all of the data for the full game).
Another factor that limited the longevity of Blackout was that it was tied to Black Ops 4, and not carried over to Modern Warfare. This is partially due to the fact that different companies work on COD under the Activision umbrella – with Treyarch focused on Black Ops and Infinity Ward on Modern Warfare. Companies such as Raven are also heavily involved. Nonetheless, in a recent interview with GamerGen, Taylor Kurosaki – Narrative Director of Infinity Ward – and Amos Hodge – Creative Director for Raven Studios – explained how Warzone will work with future games. This is the direct quote from Taylor on the matter:
Call of Duty is a genre in itself, there are different branches in the Call of Duty tree, but they’re all connected in some ways. Warzone will be the through line that connects all of the different various sub-franchises of Call of Duty. It’s going to be really cool to see how the different sub-franchises sort of come in and out of focus, but Warzone will be the one constant.
They explained that Warzone will continue as the BR mode across upcoming games and that it will be a continuous entity. They did not explain if any cosmetics or weapons would transfer, or if they would simply update the Modern Warfare version of the mode to fit the theme of this year’s game or if it will be a new download. If the current version simply evolves into the next version, it could be a bit strange if current guns and outfits were still available, especially if the upcoming game does take place during the Vietnam War as has recently been rumored.
Regardless, the devs confirmed that Warzone will continue to be a part of COD games for the foreseeable future one way or another. They also confirmed that Warzone should essentially be ready for next-gen at launch.
Also, when asked about fans’ desire for a duos mode and confusion about the addition and removal of trios several times, they explained that they are trying to work out the best playlist and that duos will definitely be coming relatively soon, they just don’t know when yet.