Warzone devs tease work on new “evolution” of the Battle Royale genre

While Warzone 2 is in the pipeline, Activision’s many development teams currently appear to be scheming on other major projects as well, all in hopes of ‘evolving’ the Battle Royale genre.

The Call of Duty franchise has had multiple stints in the Battle Royale genre. From Blackout to Warzone, devs have spent years working within the ‘last-person standing’ framework.

With its immense success, don’t expect Activision to abandon this slice of the gaming industry anytime soon. Warzone 2 is in the works for a reported 2023 launch. But some new innovations could be right around the corner to push things in a new direction.

Speaking with CoD veteran TeeP during a March 23 livestream, Warzone Creative Lead Josh Bridge suggested that multiple dev teams have already been toiling away for quite some time on something “exciting” to evolve the BR genre.

“Looking to the future, Battle Royale is awesome, we love it, but I think all of us love the idea of exploring what else we can do with a large player count in a huge map,” Bridge said.

So while the commitment is still there for the BR community, Warzone’s developers are also eyeing new concepts altogether. 

“What other sort of evolutions can we find there? That’s been pretty exciting for all the teams,” he added.

Exactly what these new experiments may look like, remains unclear for now. Though earlier leaks may from industry insiders may have outlined exactly what Bridge was teasing.

Rumblings of something brand new for CoD have existed since November 2021. Prominent leaker Tom Henderson claimed an Escape From Tarkov-style mode was in development at Infinity Ward.

This report was backed up by other sources, outlining how the standalone mode features a large player count with playlists for multiple team sizes. No doubt this description ticks many of the similar boxes outlined by Bridge in regards to ‘evolving’ the Battle Royale genre.

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Further details have since indicated this particular mode, now labeled as ‘DMZ,’ has been in the works for multiple years already. 

“I can’t speak for everyone at [Infinity Ward], but those who I’ve spoken to are actually very positive about the game itself,” Henderson added in December.

Obviously, it’s worth taking this connection with a grain of salt for now. Bridge could have been discussing a completely different project that’s yet to slip through the cracks.

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With no clear release date in mind for this potential BR evolution, we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out.