Call of Duty Warzone will stay consistent with its graphics engine and existing gameplay after the battle royale’s direct integration with Black Ops Cold War.
While Black Ops Cold War will have its own map and mode for Warzone, it will be directly tied to Modern Warfare‘s own battle royale mode. Both games will share the same engine from 2019, including familiar gameplay and movement mechanics for consistency. Players earning new cosmetics or items in Black Ops Cold War can even bring them over to Call of Duty Warzone through a different form of cross-game progression.
Activision’s Art Lead, going by ShutterMunster, took to forum ResetEra to tell users Warzone won’t be upgrading any of its graphics or core gameplay with the impending release of the next Call of Duty. This further suggests that the games would be mainly connected via. content players can add onto their operators across the two.
“There will not be an engine shift for WZ,” the Art Lead wrote in a reply.
Further info was corroborated by Activision President Rob Kostich over an earnings call, explaining that players in Black Ops Cold War would see a similar progression mechanic from Modern Warfare. Much of its system also “will build upon the success and work” from the 2019 game. As an added incentive, players unlocking any weapons and operators in Black Ops Cold War will get to use them in Modern Warfare seamlessly for multiplayer and Warzone. It’s also worth noting that loadouts from both games will be available for switching on the fly. Anachronistically, this means players in Modern Warfare will get to work with old-school guns alongside their more technologically advanced ones in matches.
Veering further away from the paid DLC model, Black Ops Cold War‘s post launch content will primarily focus on its maps and modes. Instead of offering premium DLC packs in past Call of Duty games before, this will be reserved for special Operators and Battle Passes just like Modern Warfare had done. According to Kostich, players can expect Activision to work more closely with Treyarch despite the developer rotation.
“In terms of overall progression, unlocks and content, we’ve really built upon what is really worked well for the community with Modern Warfare,” Kostich said. “And we think people and players will be really excited to checkout everything Black Ops Cold War has to offer as well.”
Call of Duty Warzone is currently on its sixth season for content and is set to clash with Black Ops Cold War when it launches on November 13, 2020 for the PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The first season for Cold War starts on December 2020.
