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Call of Duty Warzone launches March 10

The new mode apparently makes some interesting changes to the battle royale formula.

Oscar Gonzalez Former staff reporter
Oscar Gonzalez is a Texas native who covered video games, conspiracy theories, misinformation and cryptocurrency.
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Oscar Gonzalez
3 min read
Modern Warfare

Get an idea of where to drop when Warzone launches.

Activision/Infinity Ward

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare began its second season in mid-February with more maps and weapons and the addition of Ghost as a new operator for players. Since its start, however, multiple leaks have appeared online of a new battle royale mode. After weeks of speculation, publisher  Activision confirmed it's coming. 

Warzone is the Call of Duty battle royale mode that launches Tuesday, according to the game's official Twitter account Monday. The game will be free to play to anyone and will not require players to own a copy of Modern Warfare. 

Warzone will be available to play starting at 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET on March 10 for Modern Warfare owners. The full launch will happen at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Warzone will feature crossplay, which lets players across different platforms compete against one another. PlayStation players will not need a PS Plus membership to play online, according to Sony on Monday, but those members will receive a free Call of Duty: Warzone Combat Pack in the PSN Store. 

The battle royale mode will have 150-player matches and take place in the city of Verdansk with more than 300 points of interest. Players will be placed in squads of three with no update yet if that will change in the future. There are five vehicles on the map: ATVs, SUVs, cargo trucks, tactical rovers and helicopters. 

One interesting change to the battle royale formula is the inclusion of gulags. In games such as Fortnite and PUBG, a player is eliminated from a match once they die. Warzone, however, will have these downed participants go into a gulag to fight each other in one-versus-one combat to return to the match. Those who win their fights can redeploy, but the losers will have to wait for their teammates to collect enough cash to pay for a redeployment. 

Call of Duty Warzone

Here's the map for Warzone.

Activision

Acquiring money can be done via contracts. These are tasks available in a match and require players to complete a certain job such as securing a point of interest. Squads who complete the contract will receive money and other rewards including the ability to see where the map will collapse next. 

Money can be spent at buy stations found across the map. Other items available for purchase are killstreaks, self-revive kits and more. 

Along with the battle royale mode, there will be another mode called Plunder. To win, teams will need to accumulate the most money during a match. Since players can lose their money when they die, there are new items to purchase that will safely deposit funds rather than losing them. 

The confirmation from Activision comes after YouTuber Chaos published a video Monday that revealed new info about the game, but then deleted it. Redditors on the Warzone subreddit spotted the upload and created copies of it.  The video has since been reuploaded to Chaos' YouTube channel

YouTuber TheXClusiveAce posted a video on Feb. 16 showing what could be the Warzone map. In the recently added Atlas Superstore map, players can get a glimpse of where the battle royale mode could take place. A bird's-eye view shows several of the multiplayer maps coming together to form one larger map.

In December, a data miner on Reddit posted details of a battle royale mode such as the map locations, a 200-player count per match and a unique respawn token available to players to let them return to a match when they're downed -- but you can only do this once per match.

As for when the Warzone mode will release, sources tell Video Game Chronicles it'll launch sometime in early March, with March 10 being the most likely release date considering the game's update schedule.