Call of Duty – Has Warzone 2 failed or is the competition just better?

By
Michael
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Warzone 2 is not really getting off the ground. Are competitors like Apex Legends or Fortnite just too strong to survive in the Battle Royale market?

While Apex Legends is having a record-breaking season and Fortnite blows off a new first-person offensive, Warzone 2 is bobbing along, receiving just enough content and updates to stay relevant. Has Activision’s BR shooter already failed or is the competition just too strong?

The source of all evil

It all started so promisingly, a Modern Warfare 2 beta that broke records and developers who wanted to do everything better than the bug-plagued predecessor.

The initial scepticism of many players about the poor state of the game at the time of the beta soon evaporated thanks to a marketing campaign that was second to none and ensured the best sales launch in Call of Duty history.

The rude awakening, however, followed shortly after the first buyers launched the latest CoD spin-off on 28 October. The desperate search for missing features such as the hardcore mode, statistics or challenges were not the only thing that upset the community at the release of Modern Warfare 2.

Constant crashes and performance problems also caused discontent among the players and made it virtually impossible to play continuously without receiving an error message in between, including an involuntary visit to the desktop.

After most of the technical problems have been fixed in the meantime, curious bugs still cause a mixture of head-shaking and laughter in the community today.

As expected, the time between the release of MW2 and Warzone 2 was far too short to correct the many bugs that the main game had, and so it came as it had to, Warzone 2 was released similarly buggy and unstable as Modern Warfare 2 just a few weeks earlier.

Disappointed Community

Not surprisingly, the poor state of the game led to a disappointed community and saw Warzone 2 lose over 70% of its original playerbase in no time after an initial high of players. As of March 2023, only about 90,000 of the former 450,000 players remained loyal to the game.

The lack of content in Warzone 2 was also anything but positive for the development of player numbers. During the long dry spell between Season 1 and Season 2, many players left the BR shooter.

The many new gameplay mechanics such as the new loot system, the 2v2 gulag or the prefabricated perk packs, which differed drastically from the predecessor Warzone Caldera and were largely removed again after massive criticism from the community, also caused unrest.

The competition never sleeps

While some suggest that the lifespan of Battle Royale games is slowly coming to an end, CoD leaker TheGhostOfHope has a different theory that should more than worry Activision.

In view of the good numbers of Apex Legends, it is easy to explain in his eyes where the players have migrated to. While Apex Legends is setting records and celebrating its best season since release with 600,000 concurrent players, Warzone 2 has to be careful that it doesn’t disappear into insignificance.

Fortnite is also likely to become an even bigger problem for the CoD shooter. With the upcoming Season, the genre leader wants to introduce a first-person mode and introduce Creative 2.0.

It remains to be seen whether the players who have left will give Activision’s shooter a second chance and return. In the end, after many updates and adjustments, Warzone 2 has now become a good BR shooter and can definitely take on the competition.

Most of the problems that initially plagued the game, however, are, as is so often the case in the gaming industry, self-made and cannot be blamed on overly strong competition.

However, to speak of Warzone 2 as a failed game would be an exaggeration. As has been shown in the past, the CoD community is not only capable of suffering, but also loyal.