Three is preferable to one.
The battle royale’s rings are undergoing some significant alterations in Call of Duty Warzone 2.
While the first Warzone adhered to the traditional battle royale premise, where players are confined to an ever-shrinking area and forced to group together, Warzone 2 is adopting a new tack. Players won’t only be pushed into one circle, but several that will ultimately combine, as was revealed during Call of Duty Next.
“The circle’s been a staple of Battle Royales, it’s really hard to move away from it,” said game director Jack O’Hara, “so we talked about ‘What could we do to mix things up?’”
“We’ve got this new mechanic where the circle can actually split, almost like a cell splits, into two, three or even four circles, and then those circles close down. What it does is segregates teams and you have these micro battles in those circles. At a certain point, those circles merge.”
Directed and deadly
It’s not just a superficial change. While players are initially split between circles, the moment they come together will make for a climactic final battle.
“At a certain point you’re like ‘Ok, we’ve cleared out our circle, we think we’re good’. Then those circles merge, they come back together and you have this very directed fight,” said O’Hara.
“You’re gearing up in buildings, thinking ‘Here we go, it’s about to get confidence’. As soon as those circles hit, you have that final fight. It’s another twist in the gameplay that we feel is a cool world event that would happen.”
The time it takes for you to do that will be short. The release date of Warzone 2 is almost approaching. The new battle royale map, which makes good use of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s enhanced underwater gunplay, has already been thoroughly examined.