Two of gaming's largest Battle Royale juggernauts are Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends. Call of Duty has mastered first-person combat with frantic gunfights and an addictive progression system while Apex Legends takes much of Titanfall 2's gameplay and mashed it into the Battle Royale genre.
Both games are fantastic and worth playing, but many enjoy these games for different reasons. Some can't go back to other shooters after experiencing Apex Legend's superb movement, while many stick with Warzone thanks to its massive sandbox that allows for thousands of strategies each game. Whether someone is an Apex or Warzone fan, here are five things Apex Legends does better than Warzone alongside five things Warzone does better than Apex Legends.
10 Warzone Does Better: Inventory
Inventories are notoriously bad in virtually every Battle Royale title, but Call of Duty: Warzone is a great expectation to this. It lacks a traditional inventory system and is much better for it.
Players can view their total ammunition, money, and their currently equipped weapons. There is no grid system players must manage mid-game, which makes looting players much faster and more fluid. Warzone's inventory removes the unneeded bloat from other games while not compromising on core features such as sharing ammo or cash.
9 Apex Does Better: Encouraging Teamwork
Battle Royale games try to encourage teamwork in multiple ways. Warzone does this with the use of Contracts and purchasing killstreaks. Apex Legends does this with Legends or playable characters.
Each Legend comes with a passive, a main ability, and an ultimate. It might not be revolutionary, but the way these characters are balanced allows for great synergies between teams that communicate. This gets even better with the game's fantastic ping system, giving a visual and audio queue from that character on whatever they pinged. Respawn Entertainment has found a way to have players with no microphones be able to communicate as quickly and efficiently as those with microphones. All of these elements work together to promote an environment where teamwork is not only encouraged but also easy to do.
8 Warzone Does Better: Lives
Second chances are a hard thing to balance in a BR game. They can remove some of the frustration of an unfair death, but they also ruin part of the tension that BR games are known for. Call of Duty: Warzone found a fantastic solution for this with the Gulag.
Players that die are given one last chance to fight for their freedom in a 1 versus 1 duel. Failure will force the rest of the team to purchase them back, but winning grants that player another chance. It's a great system that preserves the tension of BR games while addressing the monotony of dying to something out of the team's control.
7 Apex Does Better: Map Design
As fun as it is to drive or fly across Verdansk in Warzone, it has nothing on Apex Legend's King's Canyon or World's Edge. These maps are a fantastic blend between open zones with long sightlines and enclosed environments with a surprising amount of movement options.
Ziplines and vertical playspaces help make these maps feel much more action-packed than they otherwise would be. Warzone's map, in contrast, highly encourages camping at the center of the circle since traversing open environments is suicide.
6 Warzone Does Better: Sandbox Elements
No other Battle Royale game allows players to call in airstrikes, use pre-made loadouts, or strap C4 onto a drone and wipe an enemy squad with it. Indeed, Call of Duty: Warzone has one of the most dynamic player sandboxes out of any multiplayer shooter.
Apex Legends is much more focused on gunplay and looting compared to Warzone's focus on using as many tools as possible to win, ranging from ramming people with trucks or calling down an airstrike on rooftop campers.
5 Apex Does Better: Movement
Taking parts of Titanfall 2's masterful movement system, Apex Legends has the best feeling movement in any Battle Royale game. Players can do anything from sliding past opponents or using Pathfinder's grappling hook to slingshot themselves across the map.
Traversing barren locations becomes as fun as the gunplay itself, and the movement sets an additional skill ceiling for Apex players to reach.
4 Warzone Does Better: Loadouts
While looting is a core aspect of any Battle Royale game, Call of Duty: Warzone shows that removing much of a BR game's RNG can be a great boon for the game.
Players scavenge for guns and ammo as with most games in the genre, only this game allows for groups to purchase Loadout Drops. These crates grant Create-A-Class loadouts to anyone who interacts with it, complete with weapon attachments and perks. This adds an early to mid-game goal everyone is chasing and removes most of the frustrating luck and RNG that comes with the genre.
3 Apex Does Better: Focus On Looting
On the other hand, many Battle Royale enthusiasts argue that Warzone's loadout system morphs the game into a 1-life Ground War match instead of a proper Battle Royale.
It's easy to see why when looking at other games. Apex Legends puts much more emphasis on finding powerful guns and attachments. Nearly every gun in Apex is good in the right hands and with the right attachments. Weapon attachments go on the weapon proper and can be held onto for later. Players must scavenge for healing items, ammo, and weapons instead of purchasing them like in Warzone. This results in more tense gunfights and encourages players to fight each other for the enemy's loot.
2 Warzone Does Better: Variety
Call of Duty: Warzone isn't strictly a Battle Royale game. It is an extension of Modern Warfare's multiplayer component in the most literal sense. Battle Royale might play like most titles such as Apex Legends, but many forget about its other mode Plunder.
Plunder takes the frantic gameplay of Modern Warfare and injects it into a massive 150-man match. This mode is a great alternative to the monotony Warzone's Battle Royale mode can sometimes evoke. Combined with frequent playlist changes that add or alter game modes, there is always something new and interesting to do in Call of Duty: Warzone.
1 Apex Does Better: Gunfights
Shooters live or die off their core gameplay loop. Clunky gunplay can kill a shooter's appeal, which is why the combat rhythm in Battle Royale games is so important.
Call of Duty: Warzone has a pretty good combat loop, but it can't match the gunplay present in Apex Legends. Punchy weapons and fluid movement blend together to create a ballet of death when squads decide to face each other. Time-to-kill values are low to offset the movement capabilities of players, which makes the skill ceiling much higher than Warzones. Players can see themselves get better at the game by landing more headshots and using the environment better. Again, Warzone has this as well but not to the degree Apex Legends does.