With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare‘s standalone free-to-play spin-off, Warzone, Activision is pushing deeper into the battle royale space, and the impact for the publisher could be massive. Not only that, but if successful, Warzone could potentially have implications for the entire video game industry.
Battle royale is not a fad. It started strong with PUBG, which paved the way for making battle royale games a household name and a viable business category for developers to pursue, and the genre has only grown in size and popularity since. Fortnite built upon that success and elevated the genre to incredible new heights inside of gaming and out. Apex Legends helped the category grow even further with its unique innovations and refined gameplay and gunplay.
For its part, Activision was already in the battle royale business prior to Warzone thanks to Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode, but that was just a baby step. Blackout was locked behind the paywall of having to already own Black Ops 4–despite the fact that, it was arguably the game’s major selling point. But with Warzone, Activision is opening up Call of Duty for everyone. It’s a very big deal because, up until this point, the Call of Duty franchise (on console, at least) relied on the annual $60 releases. Warzone subverts that tried-and-true model with a new take.
