Will Call of Duty: Warzone 2 be a battle royale?

With the next entry in the Call of Duty: Warzone franchise looming on the distant horizon, it is clear that Activision would like to start with a clean slate. Call of Duty: Warzone 2 will be a full sequel rather than a DLC or an update, and a new entry means a separate game client with everything Warzone currently offers left behind and replaced with new content. From what we know so far, Activision is poised not only to upgrade their offering but also change it substantially, which raises the question of whether Call of Duty: Warzone 2 will be another battle royale game.

Battle royale is still among the most profitable and popular genres in gaming today, and it is reasonable to expect that Call of Duty: Warzone 2 will keep it going with the same formula. In their official statement, the studio describes Warzone 2 as an “evolution of battle royale,” which sounds like the kind of meaningless fanfare often used to announce minute changes or a decades-old game mode. However, there are key signs that Warzone 2 may be less of a battle royale, and instead lean into the extraction survival gameplay of titles like Hunt: Showdown.

Activision emphasizes that the sequel will have a “new sandbox mode.” While battle royales are essentially large arena shooters with mostly un-interactive maps, extraction shooter maps are complex sandboxes with lots of things for players to do aside from shooting at each other. Additionally, in a February 10 QA session with content creators and media, Call of Duty franchise director Pat Kelly said that the goal is for Call of Duty: Warzone 2 to “let players define what winning looks like.” That’s something you don’t get to do in Warzone or other battle royale games at the moment: the circle decides where you go, and winning is always just being the last one standing.

The precedent for this type of switch has quietly been happening across the industry. Many big players in the FPS space have started developing extraction-style games instead of trying to directly compete with immortal juggernauts like Fortnite and Apex Legends. The Cycle: Frontier from Spec Ops: The Line developer Yager is poised to enter early access later in 2022, while Ubisoft works on two extraction survival titles of its own: The Division Heartland and Ghost Recon Frontline. Most recently, DICE attempted this type of game experience with Battlefield 2042’s Hazard Zone mode. As its 2023 release window approaches, we will have a better idea of whether Call of Duty: Warzone 2 sticks close to its battle royale origins, or ventures off into the extraction survival space.