How Warzone Will Work in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Warzone, Activision’s markedly successful Call of Duty battle royale, is a standalone game you can play for free. However, it’s also directly connected to 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Understandably, one of the biggest questions regarding this year’s Black Ops Cold War is what impact the new game will have on Warzone, if at all? Will Warzone start over with Black Ops Cold War, or will the new game come with a different version?

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War: How Warzone Will Work

As a part of this week’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Multiplayer reveal, Treyarch did cover what will happen with Warzone. Per a blog post from Activision, the only thing that isn’t all the way clear is how the Warzone executable will function. Currently, it’s a part of Modern Warfare, so even if you haven’t purchased the core game you still have to download the full application. That said, Cold War will be directly integrated into Warzone, or the other way around depending on your perspective.

Related: Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Multiplayer, Zombies First Look

Both Modern Warfare and Cold War will remain connected to Warzone. While you can’t take stuff from either game to the other, both games’ content funneled into Warzone will be available in Warzone. So that means, if you’ve been keeping up, everything you’ve unlocked in Warzone to date will still be available when Cold War comes out. Also, the Battle Pass system will continue. The interesting part of that, is that Cold War will include a “new leveling system,” which will come to Warzone “later.” So it seems like there will be a transitional period where Warzone’s progression system decouples from Modern Warfare and truly connects to Cold War. 

Either way, Warzone is still a free to play, standalone experience regardless of whether or not you buy either core game. And it’s also going to be an early landmark in next-gen cross-play, as Activision has confirmed players on every platform running Cold War will be able to play together via the Activision account structure.

In sum, Warzone will continue to exist, and maintain connective tissue to Modern Warfare, while establishing new connections to Cold War. Those two games won’t speak, but both games’ content will funnel into Warzone and be available.

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What do our readers think? Does what Activision has revealed so far make sense? Are you glad Warzone will keep your progress as it transitions into Cold War? Let us know what you think over at the Prima Games Facebook and Twitter channels!