Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 hits 25m players

The latest free-to-play version of Call of Duty has attracted 25 million players in just five days, a pace that should surpass its predecessor.

Activision Blizzard has revealed thatCall of Duty: Warzone 2.0, the latest free-to-play version of Call of Duty, has reached a player base of 25 million players in just five days following its release.

Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is an evolution of the Warzone format, a battle royale gameplay mode that has a large number of players competing on a single map to be the last player standing. When players are knocked out, the play area available shrinks, forcing players to engage in combat more and more as they near the endgame.

Warzone 2.0 changes up the experience a bit by adding a new feature called Circle Collapse. Circle Collapse spawns multiple safe zones for players to fight it out, with each circle closing independently of each other. Towards the end of the match, the circles converge on each other, funnelling what remains of the players into a single safe zone for a deadly showdown.

The player base of Warzone 2.0 reaching 25 million players in the five days following release puts it on pace to perform better than the first Warzone game, which took ten days to reach 30 million players (thanks Eurogamer!). If Warzone 2.0 keeps performing the way it does, it should easily reach and even surpass that, if it hasn’t already.

Thank you Call of Duty #Warzone2 players 💚 pic.twitter.com/gShG9I1fZl

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) November 21, 2022

No doubt some of the player retention for Warzone 2.0 comes from rumours flying over a hidden nuke in the Call of Duty game. A cheeky clip shared to Twitter featuring popular streamer TimTheTatman hinted at a possible nuclear weapon in the new game.

On the surface it seemed like a fairly innocuous joke, but when developer Raven Software quoted the tweet and suggested the rumours might be true, it sent the player base into a frenzy. The nuke still hasn’t been found, but players are scrambling to find out how to unlock it, if it even exists.

Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 also introduced a brand new map, with new locales and terrain for players to fight and survive in. Picture: Infinity Ward

The Call of Duty franchise is at the core of multiple anti-competition investigations, as Xbox manufacturer Microsoft attempts to stage a $100 billion acquisition of Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard. Regulators are concerned that Microsoft has a financial incentive to gate off its content from other platforms, such as Sony’s PlayStation.

To quell fears over the acquisition, Microsoft reportedly offered Sony a 10-year deal for Call of Duty recently, which would ensure it would be available until the end of the console generation and beyond.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.