The original Call of Duty: Warzone is shutting down on September 21, 2023, as recently confirmed by Activision. The original Call of Duty: Warzone hit the scene in 2020 as a free-to-play experience tied to 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot. It was a smash hit, largely thanks to its Verdansk map and interesting battle royale innovations like the Gulag.The Call of Duty: Warzone that exists today is virtually unrecognizable when compared to the original. Activision made sweeping changes to the Call of Duty: Warzone Verdansk map, in line with other battle royale games on the market. Eventually, it dumped Verdansk entirely and replaced it with the Pacific map Caldera, tied to Call of Duty: Vanguard. Caldera was not nearly as popular as Verdansk, leading to plummeting interest in the battle royale.Despite this, Activision kept the servers live for the original Call of Duty: Warzone. The servers remained live even after the launch of Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0. But now Activision has rebranded Warzone 2.0 and is just calling it Call of Duty: Warzone, while the actual original Call of Duty: Warzone is being shut down on September 21. Doing this will allow Activision's teams to focus on the new version of the game and projects like Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, which is expected to launch in the months ahead.
A massive downside to this is that players who purchased Call of Duty: Warzone skins can no longer access them in battle royale format. The skins and all other cosmetics for Call of Duty: Warzone are still available to use in the core Call of Duty experiences they were tied to, like Modern Warfare, Black Ops Cold War, and Vanguard, but since many exclusively played the battle royale experience, it's safe to say some fans aren't going to be happy about this.
Most fans likely won't care all that much about the original Call of Duty: Warzone being shut down, as they have likely moved on to the sequel long ago. The game formerly known as Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 currently has three maps for players to battle it out on, with the Vondel map added as part of the big Season 4 update. Rumor has it that yet another new Call of Duty battle royale map is on the horizon, but official details to that effect are unavailable at the time of this writing.
Call of Duty: Warzone will be available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One until September 21.
