What you need to know:
- The next generation of the popular free to play battle royale will release on Nov. 16, 2022 as part of the Season 1 content for Modern Warfare 2.
- The brand-new map will be Al Mazrah and will feature new points of interests.
- Players can expect new Gulag experiences as well as AI controlled strongholds.
- DMZ, the rumored extraction mode, has been confirmed as part of Warzone 2.0 and will be free to play.
While there's been no shortage of leaks and rumors regarding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 it has been much harder to pin down details about the upcoming sequel to the wildly popular free-to-play battle royale, Warzone. Thankfully, the Call of Duty: NEXT showcase has finally revealed more of what players can look forward to with Warzone 2.0.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 will officially launch on November 16 as part of the Season 1 content drop for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Players can expect season content and battle pass progress to be shared between Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2.0 and the newly revealed Call of Duty Warzone Mobile experience. Warzone 2.0 will feature an all-new map known as Al Mazrah to explore and can expect to find new experience like AI controlled Strongholds. Players will have the choice of whether or not to interact with the AI components of Warzone 2.0 as the AI will fiercely defend their territory, but they will not pursue or seek out combat with human players.
Players can expect all of the same new features from Modern Warfare's multiplayer to carry over to Warzone 2.0 including underwater combat, new vehicular mechanics, and changes to field upgrades. Al Mazrah's loot system has been changed from what Warzone fans have come to know and love, and the locations of loot are not specialized to what type of areas are around on the map. Vehicles will run out of gas and players will need to refill at gas stations if they want to keep their rides, for example.
Al Mazrah has been designed by multiple Activision owned studios to create a massive metropolitan area for players to dive into. It will offer coastal towns, depots, a desert, rocky peaks, industrialized points of interest, an entire city, rivers, and even subterranean spaces. The map can be explored by land, air, and water as even the swimming mechanics present in Modern Warfare 2 will carry over to Warzone 2.0 More than a dozen new vehicles will litter the battlefield and players will be able to use all of them to navigate the massive map.
One of the most notable changes coming to Warzone 2.0 is the shift in how the game's circle collapse behaves. A storm is gradually taking over the landscape, though the nefarious vapor from Verdansk and Caldera will be different for Al Mazrah. Even throughout the lifespan of Warzone 2.0, Al Mazrah will experience different causes for circle collapse, including the potential for extreme weather to cause anomalies like multiple circles that can merge or further split, shaping the way players approach the final circle.
In addition to changes to the overall Warzone experience, Infinity Ward finally confirmed the heavily speculated DMZ mode will be coming to Warzone 2.0. The special mode was a passion project from Infinity Ward and with support from fellow contributing studios, DMZ will be launching alongside Warzone 2.0 as a dedicated "extraction mode". Players will have the opportunity to work together, or individually, in order to collect gear that they will get to keep in their Warzone inventory for use in later matches.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will launch on October 28, 2022. Players who preorder Modern Warfare 2 will get early access to the multiplayer open beta and campaign.
