Call of Duty: Warzone has proven to be a resounding success for Activision, firmly establishing itself in the upper echelon of the saturated battle royale shooter market. With its lucrative formula and consistently large playerbase, Warzone has seemingly become a huge focus of the wider franchise.
Like any live-service game, new content has to be periodically added to Call of Duty: Warzone in a bid to keep gameplay fresh, with Seasonal updates being common. As Season 3 recently launched for the game, the introduction of the impending Operation Monarch could completely rewrite how the popular battle royale will deliver new content in the future.
How Call of Duty: Warzone's Operation Monarch Will Work
Operation Monarch is the going to be the main event for Season 3 of Call of Duty: Warzone. Set to begin on May 11, Operation Monarch will likely last two weeks at least as a live in-game event, which will help push the narrative of Season 3 in a continuous and interactive manner.
In what is a bold step for the game, Operation Monarch will see the latest Warzone map Caldera as the stage of an epic brawl between two of the most iconic monsters in popular culture: Godzilla and King Kong. While exact details of what this interactive live event will contain are currently unknown, the image of having to navigate a map while avoiding the warpath of two Titan monsters already has fans excited to get involved. The playlist for Operation Monarch is set to be a four-player squad mode, speaking more to the chaos and scale the event will foster among friends.
Operation Monarch will seemingly tell most of the narrative for Season 3, with the newly introduced operators in Call of Duty: Warzone all being members of the efficient and lethal Task Force Harpy. As a trailer for these operators ends with a teaser suggesting the testing of prototype weapons on Caldera led to Godzilla waking up, it is clear that Operation Monarch will be imperative in conveying the wider story of Season 3: Classified Arms.
Operation Monarch Could Signal a New Direction for Warzone
Operation Monarch may be even more pivotal as a first of its kind for Call of Duty: Warzone. While not unique in relation to other games, Operation Monarch will be the first wholly interactive live-event within Warzone, which will tell a narrative with a focus on the in-game experience as opposed to a traditional reliance on cutscenes absorbed outside gameplay.
While the many prior seasons Warzone has already experienced have proven to be successful in their own right, it is a formula that many will be happy to see change. Telling a narrative through one-time cutscenes that act to set up the contents of that Season's corresponding battle pass does not foster a lot of fan investment and engagement. Completely interactive events are much better in this regard.
To get an idea of how big this change could potentially be for Warzone, fans only need to look toward Fortnite. For some time, Fortnite has pioneered the concept of live events in the battle royale genre, to resounding success. Fortnite now tells the vast majority of its pertinent Seasonal narratives through live events, which see huge cataclysmic events that often alter the game's map in real-time. This often feels more personal and tangible for players, while also acting as a physical signifier for the end of a Season.
With this now being a tactic used by Warzone for Season 3's narrative, it's possible this will be how Warzone will tell its Seasonal narratives for the foreseeable future. In addition to telling narratives, Warzone can also hold one-time events in the form like limited crossovers in-line with how Fortnite periodically holds in-game concerts, broadening the variety and scope of content that Warzone can deliver.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.