Incoming Warzone Updates
Let’s talk about Season 02 for Call of Duty: Warzone. We’ve made the decision to prioritize focus on gameplay tuning, adding more quality of life, and addressing ongoing bugs. This means that in order to deliver meaningful improvements to our players, new content originally planned for Season 02 has been shifted to create bandwidth to address foundational issues. These improvements won’t come all at once – rather, they’ll be staggered across the season and with quite a few quality of life changes coming mid-season. Our priority is having the most solid foundation that Battle Royale can offer and are excited for players to see it all live.
Key Gameplay & Quality of Life Adjustments
Warzone is a constantly evolving game, bringing new experiences through yearly integrations of weapons, mechanics, maps, and more. While this approach keeps things fresh, it also comes with its share of challenges. Regular changes come with the risk of shifting the game away from what some players may consider their “sweet spot,” altering mechanics and features that once defined the game for them. The ongoing challenge lies in finding the right balance of innovation while preserving the core DNA that makes the game uniquely Warzone. On that note, we’re introducing a number of gameplay adjustments in Season 02 – and beyond – that we hope players will be happy to see.
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Weapons
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Reload speeds are faster for all weapons, anywhere from 5% to 20% depending on weapon class.
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Reduced penalty when sprint-to-fire jumping from 35% to 10% and increased jump ADS speeds by 25% – the intent is to find that middle ground of being able to pull off jump shots, without it being the meta movement strategy.
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Adjusted bullet penetration across most materials resulting in a more consistent experience for thicker walls in particular.
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Weapon swap speed increased by 10%, effectively replicating the effect of the Quick Grip Gloves Perk from Modern Warfare.
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Removed burst and semi-auto rifles and low rarity pistols from ground loot – allowing for more confidence in knowing how your weapon will fire when you pick it up.
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Movement
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Increased both jump speed and successive jump height with one unmodified successive jump.
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Increased the speed of the parachute cut animation, making cutting a parachute and readying your weapon significantly faster.
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Increased player velocity when landing from a cut parachute land, for smoother transition into full sprint.
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Audio
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Reducing reverb effects to improve directionality of movement audio produced by other players (footstep, ascenders, parachutes).
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Perks
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Combat Scout pings replaced with an outline that is not visible through walls.
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Added new default Perks:
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Dexterity (the weapon component) has been increased in effectiveness and made default for all Warzone Players
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As mentioned above, we’ve replicated the effect of Quick Grip Gloves and Fast Reload via weapon adjustments.
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Mountaineer returns as a Perk in slot 1, replacing Dexterity. We’ve increased the fall damage reduction substantially from what is currently in live with Dexterity, though not quite the powerhouse it was during Modern Warfare III.
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Veteran now significantly reduces the damage ticks of Gas Grenades.
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Equipment & Killstreaks
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Munitions Satchel now only provides 1 additional item, down from 2, to address overstocking and spamming equipment.
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Maximum deployed tacticals and lethals reduced to 2 each, down from 3, to make more purposeful trap plays.
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Gas Grenade radius, duration, and movement penalties reduced to bring in-line with the vision of a zoning tactical and less of a lethal crutch.
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Spy Camera’s outline effect no longer renders through walls.
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Advanced UAVs will now show elevation arrows.
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Miscellaneous
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Body Shield functionality limited:
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No longer automatically releases players in free fall.
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No longer provides an outline of the victims’ teammates through walls.
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Removed manual release of players, keeping them alive – must end with an execution.
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The flares that fire out of Buy Stations when a player is bought back can now be pinged to increase visibility on redeployments.
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Match stat tracker font adjusted for better readability at lower resolutions.
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Bug Fixes
Regarding live issues, we know how frustrating it is to see them linger or go unaddressed in patch notes. Although our teams work hard to keep @CODUpdates and Trello current with the most visible issues, these channels do not reflect the full depth of work being done behind the scenes. Prioritization of fixes is fluid and shifts as new issues appear or as ground is paved on existing ones. As always, player feedback is an important pillar of this process – so we encourage you to continue sharing your experiences with us.
Here are some of the fixes players can expect to see when Season 02 launches:
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Map & Gameplay Issues
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Addressed visibility of dark areas and characters on Rebirth Island.
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Addressed players being forced to stand up while reviving downed squad members.
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Addressed exploits allowing players to access unintended areas of the map.
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Addressed parachutes deploying when jumping off ladders.
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Weapons & Equipment
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Addressed weapons becoming inaccessible near interactable areas.
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Addressed weapons falling through Buy Station models.
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Addressed weapon tooltips appearing as common when dropped to the ground.
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Perks & Contracts
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Addressed Ghost persisting through the prematch lobby into the match.
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Addressed Cold Blooded not properly countering Tracker.
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Addressed Quick Fix health regen not properly activating while plating.
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Addressed Survivor preventing players from reviving downed squad members.
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Addressed Most Wanted contracts not overriding respawn timers as intended.
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Operators
Ranked Play
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In addition to the above note on incoming cross-play options for console players, Ranked Play in Season 02 will see a refinement to the amount of SR required and adjustments to deployment fees. These updates aim to soften the on-ramp into accessing Ranked Play and make the top end truly competitive.
As a parting thought, we want to take a moment to reflect on the significance of Black Ops 6’s integration – the largest in Call of Duty history – which, for the first time, has brought our teams and products together into a unified development environment. While this transformation has presented its share of obstacles, it also paves the way for more ambitious updates and closer collaboration in the future. We’re essentially laying a foundation to make new technology immediately available to all of our studios, improving development pipelines and the stability of porting features between titles, and allowing us to focus more of our time on future releases.