Warzone needs Black Ops 6 ASAP after shocking playlist update decision
ActivisionThe final season of Modern Warfare 3 Warzone is now well underway and, as players prepare for the launch of Black Ops 6, it’s become clear that Warzone has to do something big to keep players interested — or risk losing them entirely.
On September 26, Warzone developers Raven Software announced that they would be “consolidating” their playlists as they prepare for the future of the battle royale and Black Ops 6. This news came to mass complaints and questioning from players, who couldn’t believe how limited the playlist options were.
And those players are well within their right to be upset or frustrated — frequently, playlist updates leave certain groups out, but now players who enjoy, for example, BR Duos, are being left out to dry completely.
The change, which looks set to take place until the next iteration of Warzone arrives, will feature just the following modes:
- Battle Royale: Solos & Quads
- Resurgence: Duos & Quads
- Resurgence Ranked: Trios
- Plunder, Bootcamp, and active LTMs
The issues with this are evident. If you regularly play Trios with your friends, you can now only play Ranked, or be forced to play a man down in quads modes.
Duos are forced into Resurgence — which will be on a map rotation, rather than just one singular map — or will have to put a serious shift in to attempt to play battle royale quads.
There is clearly a reason that Raven have opted to make these changes. It’s possible that BR Duos and Trios just weren’t super populated, and so they’ve been sacrificed.
The issue is, that players now know that they’re facing several weeks without these modes. There’s no expectation that we’ll see them before the Black Ops 6 Warzone integration, and that alone could be several weeks post-launch.
The Warzone integration each year is usually around three weeks after the new game has launched so, with Black Ops 6 arriving on October 25, it could be mid-November when these modes return — and that’s plenty of time for players to grow sick of the game.
The solution is obvious: if Raven aren’t willing to bring those modes back, the Warzone integration has to take place earlier than it would regularly be scheduled.
ActivisionThere is some hope for this, too: the Ranked servers are set to go down on Thursday, October 17, so this may mean Raven are looking to get the ball rolling soon after launch, especially as that will then leave Trios players without a home.
At the time of writing, a roughly 7 week wait for these playlists to return is somewhat unthinkable. Two months with such a limited selection is simply too long, as made very evident by the outpouring of frustration in the response to the announcement.
Naturally, Activision and Treyarch will want to give Black Ops 6 some time to breathe and stand on its own two feet between the new multiplayer, Zombies, and Campaign. So, any expectation for the above playlists to return on launch day seems misguided.
However, it would make more sense to target a two-week window – only a week shorter than usual – where players can go in, play through the Campaign, and start getting all of their multiplayer weapons leveled up, before bringing battle royale back in its full glory.
Alternatively, they could bring back some of these removed playlists until closer to launch, giving players a bit more time in their preferred modes.
ActivisionWhat Warzone in Black Ops 6 looks like remains to be seen. We know that Area 99 will arrive as a new Resurgence map, but there’s a big blank space between now and the return of Verdansk, which is anticipated in Spring 2025.
The lack of love big map battle royale has received in recent months has been a huge point of contention among players, who feel it is being neglected in favor of Resurgence, and the lack of changes to Urzikstan certainly helps that theory.
With the promise of Verdansk and big map ranked down the line, however, there is a lot to look forward to for players, but Raven have to keep those people wanting to come back, and this playlist update could leave a sour taste in the mouths of many.