Call of Duty Warzone Eyes Fortnite-Size Dominance with Next-Gen Run
Infinity Ward has offered the clearest indication yet that flagship battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone is heading to PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Call of Duty's motto: if you can't beat them, eliminate them. | Source: Activision
- Free-to-play battle royale shooter Warzone will act as ‘constant’ to connect all future Call of Duty games.
- Developer Infinity Ward confirms it aims to bring the game to next-generation consoles.
- There are currently no plans to port Warzone to Google Stadia.
Activision’s Call of Duty: Warzone is seemingly here to stay with developer Infinity Ward intent on Fortnite-style longevity for the popular free-to-play battle royale shooter.
The Future of Warzone
Speaking to French gaming outlet, Gamer Gen, Infinity Ward’s narrative director Taylor Kurosaki touched on the future of Warzone, especially when weathering in-house competition from other Call of Duty releases.
Kurosaki explained:
Call of Duty is a genre in itself, there are different branches in the Call of Duty tree, but they’re all connected in some ways. Warzone will be the through-line that connects all of the different various sub-franchises of Call of Duty. It’s going to be really cool to see how the different sub-franchises sort of come in and out of focus, but Warzone will be the one constant.
Next- Gen Support
When pressed for information about whether Infinity Ward was eyeing up a next-gen port of Warzone on the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, Kurosaki struck a positive note.
I know that our plan is Warzone is going to be around for quite some time, so as soon as those new systems are out and available I’m sure we’ll support them.
This confirmation certainly isn’t set in stone. It does raise questions about whether Infinity Ward will retool an upgraded version of Warzone for the next-gen consoles or make use of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X’s backward compatibility functionality to run the game.
Either way, Warzone’s 50 million-strong player base means the game is likely to remain part of the industry’s fabric for the foreseeable future. It makes sense to update and improve the game over time rather than release yearly iterations alongside mainstream Call of Duty releases.
In the same interview, Kurasaki revealed that Infinity Ward currently has no plans to port Warzone to Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service. So while the unreleased next-gen consoles have received the nod from Infinity Ward, it appears Stadia doesn’t yet have the chops to merit a port.
UK-based writer covering the video game industry. Email me | Bug me on Twitter