I finished Warzone 1 after 10 minutes annoyed – But Warzone 2 is awesome

For MeinMMO author Mark Sellner, Call of Duty is not a big deal. He is more at home in other shooters and tried Warzone 1, but closed it again very quickly and for the long term. However, with Warzone 2 it is completely different and he can hardly put the game down.

Admittedly, Call of Duty isn’t really my genre. Or so I thought. Because at least the last two to three thousand hours that I spent in shooters were spent on slower games.

Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown were at the forefront. I also liked Sniper Elite in the past. My last Call of Duty that I really actively played was Modern Warfare 3 (2011). After that, there were only short excursions into the series.

However, I’ve always found Battle Royale titles exciting and really liked the concept of permanent failure through a single death. So I’ve tried pretty much every BR on the market at least once.

But I liked Warzone 1 the least. When the game came out, I immediately started it and took a spin, but somehow the spark was missing. I didn’t like the map, the gulag annoyed me and I found the whole thing with the self-made loadouts completely out of place in a battle royale.

We don’t even need to talk about the weird “booty money” mode. To this day I cringe awkwardly every time someone says booty money. That doesn’t happen too often, but something has burned in anyway.

Who writes here? Mark Sellner has been playing shooters since he could hold a mouse, but mostly on the slower side. Valorant, CS:GO and Hunt: Showdown have given him thousands of hours of gameplay, and now he thinks Warzone 2 could do the same.

I involuntarily started Warzone 2 and had a fantastic time

The attentive reader may have noticed that I’m not necessarily the type of player who gets involved in a new Call of Duty. But actually, thanks to Modern Warfare 2, the nostalgia totally picked me up. I bought the latest offshoot right after the release.

The topic then came up in the editorial office that we needed a small clip from Warzone 2 for a video. I was there and had the game installed, so I offered myself. I didn’t expect anything at all and actually I just wanted to film my 30-second clip and get out of Warzone 2.

But in this one match I had so much fun that it wasn’t possible. I ran haphazardly through the Warzone 2 map, which was more appealing and pleasantly larger this time, and found a helicopter.

Since I’m an absolute fan of everything that can fly, I jumped in right away and promptly accidentally ignited the brightly lit defense rockets. After a short period of euphoria, I realized that I had to refuel my flying vehicle and landed right next to a gas station.

You can see what makes Warzone 2 different in our video:

When I heard shots, I sprinted for cover and had a brilliant idea: Other people love helicopters just as much as I do. If I just sit in that tower and aim my chopper, I’m sure I’ll win.

My incredibly innovative plan worked better than I thought and I got 16 kills in my first round. Nobody wanted to get to my helicopter, but the position was probably well chosen.

What I particularly liked was that thanks to the proximity chat, someone kept letting me know that he had a very good relationship with my mother when I shot him. But I really liked proximity chat in Hunt, and it made me laugh here too.

CoD hooked me and I hooked my friends

I enthusiastically told about my experiences in the Discord and was able to get my friends to do a few laps in Warzone 2 with me. The shooter is even more fun together once you can clear the initial hurdle.

Because as a well-established Hunt: Showdown team, there were three of us. A scenario that Warzone 2 somehow hardly takes into account. In the main menu I have the choice between solo, duo and team of 4. Trios can only choose Crazy 3 or 3rd person mode.

After a round of 3rd person mode, we finally decided on the crazy 3rd person. 3rd person is a cool gimmick, but just not my playstyle. In the crazy 3 you can recruit other trios and then play in a team of 6 people.

That sounds really cool, especially thanks to the proximity chat. But that doesn’t really want to work. In each of my rounds so far, we’ve just been shot at, without asking any questions or wanting to recruit. Overtures on my part were only answered with shots – too bad.

Still, Trio mode is my favorite so far. At least having the chance to ally yourself with a complete stranger is something I really like. Here again, my Hunt: Showdown history stands out. Even if it only seems to happen every 200 matches, it’s awesome to ally with the enemy and play off a third team with it.

The chance alone makes the trio mode and proximity chat my absolute highlight of Warzone 2 and the main reason why I fell in love with the second part, while I still can’t stand the first to this day.

Warzone 2 is also bigger than its predecessor:

Warzone 2 does a lot of things well, but it’s not perfect

But even as someone who enjoys Warzone 2, I have to say that some things bother me regularly. The non-final death in Battle Royale is in the foreground for me.

The gulag already bothered me in the first part. Also in Warzone 2 it is again what annoys me the most. When I die, I’m thrown into an arena where I can fight for my life in 2v2.

If I win, I can start again, but without my previously collected equipment. That was stupid in Warzone 1, but it was at least 1 against 1. In Warzone 2 I either have to rely on a stranger or win a 1v2. That’s just not a smart solution, in my opinion.

Please Warzone, let me die

Apart from that, I personally find it disturbing that the Gulag exists at all. For me it takes away a lot of the appeal of battle royale gameswhen I know that my death need not be final.

Likewise, I find it equally unproductive for gameplay that even after I’ve died and lost in the Gulag, my teammates have a workaround. Because for 4,000 in-game dollars, which you can really find on every corner, they can buy me back into the game at certain points on the map.

Sure, that’s whining at a high level now. One or the other is probably thinking: “Is that guy complaining about the fact that he’s allowed to play more?” – Yes, he is. Because there is always the possibility that I can come back, I play less tactically. More careless than in an Escape from Tarkov or Hunt: Showdown. And that’s exactly what I find sad.

But in general I’m not 100% the target group of Warzone 2. Nevertheless, I’m having a lot of fun in the Battle Royale shooter and I’m already looking forward to jumping over Al Mazrah with my squad very often. And who knows, maybe I’ll meet one of you who actually wants to join forces, that would be great.