Call of Duty: Warzone – Black Ops Royale review

Warzone has become a comfort mode for myself and my group. Sometimes you just like to jump into a run of casuals and chill. That said, Warzone has drifted harshly away from what Call of Duty's inaugural battle royale was. Blackout required skill and grit, along with looting as much of the best gear and weaponry possible. Black Ops Royale is here to shift the narrative, but can enough be changed inside of Warzone to move it away from the "bigger multiplayer match" formula without causing players to hate it? Let's get into it.

I'm glad the teams decided to go with a new map out of the gate with Black Ops Royale. As much as players love Verdansk, it would have been a mistake to use it for this. As much as I love the previous Blackout map, that was probably a challenge as well, so moving to Avalon was a great choice. They've been able to test how players engage with it a bit with Endgame (similar to the rollout of Modern Warfare Zombies, Urzikstan, and Warzone), and with that, they've made changes to better suit the mode.

There's a ton of water on the Endgame version of Avalon. So much so, that crossing some channels is nearly impossible -- even with the kinetic jump -- unless you hit exactly the right spot. In Warzone, with PVP involved, it doesn't make sense to trap your players, so the dump trucks and excavators have backed up and pushed some dirt and sand into place. Suddenly, the map has a stellar flow for traversal, and while I'd say the grappling hook is still necessary in certain locations, you won't have to worry about being stuck in a fight on a tiny island with no cover.

Even with these changes, compared to Warzone proper, Avalon can feel a bit large with only 100 players. I do understand this to a degree; if you're wanting your players to have the time to loot, you can't just push them immediately into gunfights. That said, the ground loot at launch was slim pickins, so dropping into POIs was the better play, which put you into battle quicker. There have been recent updates to improve the weaponry you'll find, but I feel like the limited size can hurt your perception, especially considering how fast the gameplay you're used to is in Warzone.

That said, the POIs do feel varied and the space in between them isn't too bad. Maybe it is a product of fewer players, but in these wide open fields you'll find in Avalon, you don't often have to sprint into oncoming bullets. I'm curious if my squad would get third-partied more often in a 144-player lobby. At any rate, Avalon is excellent in Endgame, and I think it gets even more of a chance to shine here. Gone is the intensity of the Cradle gas atmosphere, and here is the bright sunshine which makes the map almost cheery... you know, before all the bloodshed. I also appreciate the verticality that isn't abused in creation (yes, I know it's abused by players), leaving space for face-to-face fights when the circle commands it.

As we're already delving into gameplay, I have to commend Raven and Treyarch on sticking to their guns in bringing Black Ops Royale to fruition. It would have been easy just to throw a skin or theme on top of Avalon and call it a day, but they've put actual effort into the systems. I know not everyone likes it, but at it's core this is a return to battle royale. Go play Apex Legends or PUBG and tell me about how the pacing is terrible. Warzone has become so "multiplayer-fied" that the experience just isn't a true battle royale. While that's not always what players want, getting this formula that commands your full attention is the right move and adds much needed freshness to the game that's been missing for quite some time.

This is how you play Black Ops Royale: Loot, upgrade, position, kill. Sprinting at someone in this mode just isn't a great idea unless you're kitted out. Occasionally, you'll get the drop on someone due to positioning, but the winning formula that I've written above is what you'll have to learn. Most of what you find on the ground isn't good enough at the beginning, and even after a few upgrades, you'll still need to complete a few on-map activities to earn better gear. Figuring out the loop, finding what you need, and staying alive while doing it, is imperative to getting that coveted victory.

Black Ops Royale's ground loot is a lot more subdued, and that's because the devs have moved some guns out. In their place, pre-built archetypes sit, waiting for you to pick them up. I will say, unless you can pay close attention, the naming conventions (Heavy Metal LMG and Recon assault rifle) don't exactly tell you what the weapon is good at. I'm tied into the load out community and read the blog detailing everything, but not everyone is into the game like I am. There could be an improvement here to help players understand what works for what they're trying to do.

Upgrading your weaponry is simple – you pick up purple attachment kits on the ground and they immediately build out your selected weapon. I do like this better than a mind-numbing search for attachments, and recent updates have made these kits easier to find. Just make sure you're holding the correct weapon when you grab one; they're applied permanently.

Other items found on the ground are similar to Warzone, with things like point turrets, smoke grenades, grappling hooks, and ammo boxes included. I appreciate being able to hold two of each, although the quick swapping when in inventory is a learning experience. The lineup chosen is pretty great, but two items reign over all.

These are the grappling hook and trauma kit. One gives outstanding movement capability, to the point having it can be the difference in a win or loss. You can almost ignore high ground because of the grappling hook and zip to cover even in a flat area. Paired with wall jumping, it's deadly, but is also a blast to use. The trauma kit is a cheat code, and may be too powerful. Using it gives you a health boost of 100, nearly doubling you from 150 to 250. It only is affected if you take damage past your plates, and with how long the buff lasts – and being able to pick up another once used without penalty – it's a wild upgrade. It may need some kind of nerf, and soon.

This perfectly segues into vests, which are absolutely an issue in Black Ops Royale. This mode marries the aspect of vests with plates, but obviously in a fresh new way... which kind of sucks. Once you are plated, your acquired vest mitigates damage. These are found either through boxes for the initial version, or through activities for better tiers. The best one, the Tier 3, can mitigate 50% of damage, which essentially makes it a win condition. It's hard to get, but when you have it, you're probably going to be too tough to take down.

I've won a single match of Black Ops Royale, and it was because I had one of these vests. Sure, I was shooting and had my fully upgraded weapons, but when my vest has my opponent needing to shoot me twice as much, it can nearly guarantee a win on it's own. When I start shooting at someone and see that icon pop up during my firefight, I know I'm probably losing. While I love the idea of looting to the win, this level of it is somewhat obscene. Hopefully, a correction or solution will come in updates because the tier 3 vest is too much at the moment.

That said, the time-to-kill still feels fine. Call of Duty's gunplay is, as I always say, the best out there. Nothing comes close to it. In Black Ops Royale, not only is it satisfying, but the addition of the old sounds for headshots, downs, kills, and armor breaking is oh so good.

Perks are an area of the game I'm still figuring out, but I think they are essentially an afterthought in their current implementation. They sit as little boxes on the ground, and when you hover over them, you get a readout of which one it is. If you haven't memorized the descriptions from the blog or played a ton of Black Ops Royale – similar to what I mentioned with weapon archetypes – you're rarely going to be able to react fast enough to take advantage of these fully.

You can stow up to five of them (and the button press for that is confusing), but accessing your inventory quickly and activating them in time during a team fight probably isn't the best option. I often just instantly equipped them, and as consumables they run out after a little bit. Did I ever get the benefit of them? Who knows. Maybe the pick up process or on-screen information can be improved in the future beyond a perk bar reminiscent of Zombie perk-a-colas.

Getting all of this great loot, gear, and perks requires more than just scanning the immediate area. You'll certainly come across an occasional attachment kit or perk while running through an open area, but your best bet to get anything done is doing a few activities along the way. These seem to spawn in the same locations, and while doing them can reveal you on the map, the benefits often outweigh the risks.

As soon as my group finishes the initial gear-up phase from our drop, we instantly start looking for activities to do. None of these are too tough, and if you've played Endgame, you have probably done a few. Whether killing a few bots from a Guild shipping crate, activating a contract on another player, or destroying a Guild drone, you're rewarded with gear for your troubles. Sometimes you'll find a safecracker key, which enables you to hit a safe for fantastic goodies like a tier 2 vest or killstreaks. The way the activities escalate is awesome, adding intensity if you decide to go down that road.

Speaking of escalation, twice during every match, you'll have a Cradle gas bomb hit an area and begin a limited-time mission. If you brave the gas, you'll have to fight Zombies for a chance at some epic loot – tier 3 vests and exotic guns that ignore the restrictions of archetypes are on the menu. These tasks involve taking down a Mangler and getting enough Zombie kills to roll a spawned Mystery Box for a reward, and it's a cool returning concept from Blackout. Given other players can third-party you amid it, I like the high-risk and high-reward aspect of the Cradle gas zone.

If your play doesn't work, you get the chance to redeploy via a token once, as long as you're in the infil window. If you've already used up your second chance, your friends have to run to a redeploy tower, which is another activity that can draw the wrong kind of attention. It's a good induced stress compared to buying your teammate back, forcing you to hold a zone to get reinforcements. You should have to do more than simply running to a buy station and quickly pressing a button to get your support back in.

I'm going to sound crazy, but I don't miss buy stations or UAVs. Again, this is supposed to be a true battle royale, and those elements aren't conducive to the kind of gameplay for that genre of warfare. Not to mention, most of the time in a match of Warzone you sprint around only looking for cash. Here, there's no currency to gather – just collect the best gear and get ready to battle.

Before I finish up this review, I want to praise the efforts of Treyarch and Raven Software surrounding the responsiveness to feedback. Dropping a mode like this, especially when players are so used to what Warzone has been over the last six years, isn't easy. It's even tougher when you have to sift between legitimate criticism. They seem to have found the right changes to make so far – ground loot and attachment kit disparity improvements have been superb. Solos have also been enabled, which was highly requested by the community. It'll be intriguing to see where Black Ops Royale ends up at the end of the cycle (and especially the cadence of seasonal content), but at least the teams behind it are putting in the necessary effort to make the best of it.