Call of Duty: Warzone is one of the most successful battle-royale-style games ever. Garnering millions of players over its four-year lifespan, Warzone offered players a free-to-play battle royale with the slick responsive controls of Call of Duty. It was accessible across all major platforms except for Nintendo Switch, and the addition of crossplay ensured a wide player base no matter what. Warzone did a lot of things right, and its popularity reflects that.
With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) on the horizon, players are looking forward to more details on Warzone 2. One map has already been released for the public to see, and fans are already discussing how good the map will be compared to Verdansk. Many players agree that Verdansk was a rather lackluster battle royale map. Players are hoping for a unique map this time around, and there are plenty of other avenues the developers of Warzone 2 can take to improve the highly anticipated sequel.
10 Improve Scaling/Vaulting Of Natural Environments
In a game that demands accuracy, good positioning, and decent map knowledge to win, Call of Duty Warzone players hate dying to things out of their control. One repeat offender was the map itself; rocks and rocky hills were the ends of many a player on the verge of a big win. Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019) and Warzone had excellent movement options with tactical sprints, slides, and clean vaulting.
When it looked like something could be scaled or vaulted, it usually could be, thanks to the games' tight controls. Unfortunately, this rule didn't apply to rocks that looked scalable. Players would often slide down the rocks instead. One huge quality of life improvement Warzone 2 could make would be to make these rocky areas easier to navigate on foot.
9 Console FOV Sliders
Warzone generally had good customization options, especially with controller customization. However, one thing that was oddly absent was the FOV slider on console versions of the game.
Many players think that this should have just been a default option for every player, but it simply wasn't there for console players. Adding FOV sliders and even more accessibility options in Warzone 2 will only improve the experience and allow more players to enjoy the game.
8 Players Should Always Have A Pistol
This is an improvement that some players are asking for after learning about some new movement options in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022). Several content creators with early access to the game have detailed that players are now able to "hold" their vaulting animation and hang on ledges. While in this hanging mode, players can peek over edges and fire at enemies with a pistol should they have one equipped.
Though this will rarely be applicable in classic 6v6 multiplayer, it could make for some funny or cool clips in Warzone 2. Unfortunately, if the weapon systems like the previous title, players will only be able to carry two weapons at a time. As it stands, pistols are hardly in meta loadouts in Call of Duty Warzone, so it's safe to assume they won't be wildly powerful in the sequel. One possible improvement is to allow players to keep their default starting pistol upon landing and grabbing new guns. This would let players take advantage of the new movement options to their full extent.
7 Ensure Vehicle Balance
For months before numerous balance patches were released, vehicles in Call of Duty: Warzone were quite powerful, especially the massive cargo trucks. Oftentimes in solo matches, the final circle would come down to two or three cargo trucks driving around in an boring game of chicken.
The trucks had a ton of health, and a single ground combatant could hardly do anything against them. Hopefully, the developers can manage to incorporate vehicles in a fun way in Warzone 2 while avoiding final circle truck matches.
6 Change Up Weapon Balance
Call of Duty: Warzone went through many metas throughout its lifespan. Some of these were better-liked than others, and a few were caused by flat-out bugged weapons. Certain weapons remained meta for years though, like the Kar98 marksman rifle. Thanks to the strict skill-based matchmaking, players in high skill brackets were essentially forced to use the same four weapons, as anything less couldn't beat other teams.
Many players are hoping for big changes to weapon balance. This could mean buffing new weapons more frequently and nerfing others so that players are forced to use different loadouts over time. It could also mean trying to expand the meta weapons past three or four guns into seven or eight, all with unique traits. As long as Warzone 2 avoids metas like the DMR-14/Mac-10 meta or the bugged SP-R 208 meta, most players will be satisfied.
5 Add New End Screens
Nearly every Warzone player has seen their character fly away in the end-game helicopter. It's a great feeling, but it certainly got old. Players are hoping for improvements to the end game screen. This could include new cinematics or something to show off to the teams spectating the end-game.
Some players want the end screen to show their kills and damage below their name, and some want this information to be highlighted if it was the best in the 150-player lobby. Any of these changes would make winning all the more satisfying.
4 Improve Performance
This improvement is constantly requested across nearly every type of competitive online game. Obviously, the developers are never going to be able to match the feeling of an offline LAN multiplayer match, but there can certainly be some work done with the Warzone servers and how matchmaking is handled. Thanks to the testing of several content creators, it was discovered that the matchmaking in Warzone was dictated more by skill bracket or MMR than by ping.
Essentially, this means that a player in a high skill bracket would often be placed in a server with other players with a similar MMR. This high-skill player could be playing in New Mexico, but the server they get placed in is hosted in Florida. This can be frustrating for players on both sides. Many players are hoping for improved server health and for more ping-focused matchmaking in the future.
3 Always Make The Gulag Mirror Itself
One unique aspect of Call of Duty: Warzone was the gulag. Other games like Apex Legends and even Fortnite had ways to respawn teammates, but Warzone put a neat spin on the concept. Teammates could be "bought back" at buy stations across the map for 4000 bucks in-game. Before this, though, players would have a chance to fight another player in the gulag. Whoever won their gulag match got to rejoin their team.
The gulag added a ton of hype to the game. Unfortunately, as the game was updated, new versions of the gulag were released. Sometimes, these gulags weren't exact mirrors, meaning that one spawn had a noticeable advantage over the other. If the gulag returns (which it hopefully will) it should be ensured that the arena is as balanced for both fighters as possible.
2 Make Weapon Leveling Easier
Warzone was free-to-play, which made it accessible for a lot of players. Unfortunately, it was difficult for Warzone-exclusive players to keep up with all the updates in the meta. As more weapons were added from different games, players that only played Warzone fell behind in the competitive meta. Free-to-play players in high skill brackets would often suffer, because they were using older weapons that they'd spent countless hours leveling for the previous meta.
Warzone 2 could offer a huge improvement by giving free-to-play players a way to level weapons. Usually, it was easiest to level guns in the regular 6v6 multiplayer, but this wasn't an option for free players. To make the most competitive environment, Warzone 2 should allow free players to level guns at the same rate as players with access to multiplayer.
1 Fine Tune Optimization
The final but most important improvement Warzone 2 can make is improving optimization.Warzone was a ton of fun for friends to team up in, but sometimes the game just didn't run well. It crashed, lagged, and froze up even on good gaming PCs. This broke teams up.
If the developers of Warzone 2 are able, it would be a massive improvement for the game to really fine-tune optimization. It would allow an opportunity to get those old teams back together again.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (2022) is set to release on Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Steam, and Blizzard.