Considering it still remains one of the most popular options for battle royale at the moment, Call of Duty: Warzone continues to thrive. Even during the absence of Call of Duty news or announcements this summer, players still flocked to Warzone to get their wins. Whether players are seasoned Modern Warfare veterans, or they're simply jumping into the battle royale for the first time, Warzone's seen great success from both camps. Even with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on the horizon, Warzone is still a very popular option for battle royale options, and will continue to thrive alongside 2020's Call of Duty entry.

A lingering question on the minds of Warzone fans as soon as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was announced was what would happen to Warzone? Would Black Ops Cold War have its own version of a battle royale? Activision had consistently mentioned that WarzoneModern Warfare, and Black Ops Cold War would all integrate in some fashion. Now, the game's publisher has confirmed how integration between the three games functions, and luckily it's pretty painless for new and veteran players. However, there could be some potential points of issue in the future now that all of these games are interconnected, but minor points to be fair.

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A Unified Warzone Experience For Call of Duty Fans

For returning players, the integration of Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be simple and relatively hands-off. Starting at the game's launch on November 13, players will start to see content from Black Ops Cold War trickle into the Warzone experience over time: Black Ops Cold War will have a sort-of mini battle pass "Pre-Season" at launch, but on December 10, Season One will integrate all experience progression from all three games into one unified battle pass. This will effectively "reset" a player's Military Rank on December 10, though it's important to note that all unlocks (weapons, attachments, equipment, etc.) will not reset.

Basically, this means that Black Ops Cold War will have its own isolated progression for a few weeks while launch players acquire unlocks and more. Then, on December 10, the current "Enlisted Ranks" system will be replaced by Military Rank progression, which will have synced progress between WarzoneModern Warfare, and Black Ops Cold WarWarzone will not remove content from Modern Warfare, and will add content from Black Ops Cold War over time.

That means classes and weapons will have specific designations for which Call of Duty game they originate from, though obviously that means Black Ops Cold War and Modern Warfare won't share weapons, only Warzone will. It's unclear how the organization will function, which could be a bit confusing for Modern Warfare veterans, who's classes carried over between both games seamlessly. That's a minor organizational hurdle that will presumably be tackled, however, there may be more pertinent issues in Warzone's future with unified progression and weapons.

Potential Issues with Warzone's Three-Way Integration

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For one thing, Warzone and Black Ops Cold War were built on two very different gameplay engines. Putting aside any weapon or equipment balances differences, the way characters move and operate in both games will be vastly different. With weapons it's not a huge issue, considering they'll be compatible with both games, but things like mantling, drop-shotting and jump-shotting, and especially sliding operate very differently between both games. Sprinting and general character speed is also vastly different between both games. Warzone fans who also play Black Ops Cold War frequently will have to perform some unprecedented juggling to play both games well.

That does also bring up the issue of managing balance changes between all three games. Integrating Black Ops Cold War weapons into Warzone means the development team will now need to coordinate and implement weapon/equipment balance revisions between three separate multiplayer experiences. That's a huge undertaking, one that will presumably cause issues for Warzone, which has notoriously had several balance issues result from changes in Modern Warfare carrying over. The overpowered FAMAS underbarrel shotgun comes to mind specifically, which means adding an entire new Call of Duty game into the balance changes makes even more room for error.

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Warzone's Integration Should Be Painless, For Now

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At the moment, Warzone's integration between all three games should be pretty painless for players. However, time will tell if that still holds true when updates start rolling out for all three games in the future. That's really the only big caveat here; even if there's more room for error, balance changes will likely be as swift and comprehensive as possible. Modern Warfare and Warzone have proven already that systemically broken weapons don't really stick around for very long. That being said, adding Black Ops Cold War into the mix could make balance revisions slower to roll out.

Again, that's just conjecture for now. Call of Duty is promising a clean integration between all three systems, and there's no reason not to believe them. The Warzone development team is putting in a ton of effort to enable both cross progression and the usage of both games' weapons in one battle royale. That's an incredible hurdle, but also a sign of good faith that Activision doesn't want to burn its existing fanbase with a new annual release. These are only potential issues that could occur with future balance changes, but so long as the frequency of updates matches that of Warzone and Modern Warfare in the past, than it won't be a huge problem.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War releases on November 13, 2020, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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