Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0is now available to play, with many fans sinking their teeth into the highly anticipated sequel to Activision’s battle royale. This new title comes with a litany of changes that aim to take the formula of its predecessor in an engaging direction.
While theseWarzone 2.0changes have manifested as things like brand-new game modes, many of them are key game mechanic adjustments compared to its previous installment. One of the most interesting changes made toWarzone 2.0concerns its end-game circles, or safe-zones, which now have the ability to duplicate and force a match’s remaining players into different areas of the map.
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The Original Warzone’s Circle Mechanics
The genre of battle royale gameshas become extremely popular, with some of the most influential contemporary titles belonging contributing to this style. The vast majority of these games possess a similar framework of core mechanics, and the concept of a shrinking safe-zone is synonymous with battle royales as a whole.
By having the safe area of the map constantly shrink, players are forced into closer proximity with one another as a game goes on, making it so that dozens of people can’t hide forever. The random nature of where these safe-zones position themselves fosters a huge amount of replayability for battle royale games. Thesuccessful originalCall of Duty: Warzoneran with this formula by having different safe zone circles be periodically assigned to the map as a match goes on. While the game did have some variation with how the final circle could slowly move in a given direction, changes made inWarzone 2.0are more interesting and comprehensive.
Warzone 2.0’s Splitting Circles Mechanic
Warzone 2.0has a unique flare to its circle mechanics. Toward the end of a match, the circles inWarzone 2.0can split apart, with up to four individual circles forming as a result. These branching circles provide the added benefit of unpredictability. Whilesafe-zone circles in battle royalesoften force the entire lobby into one confined area, these new splitting circles can create several different arenas on a smaller scale, splitting up a match’s players to drive chaos and confusion.
This new mechanic is random, meaning many games may be played with thestandard circle mechanics fromWarzone, or see just two or three splitting circles. If a match is drawing near its end, the amount of split circles that are present will converge back into a singular final circle, leading to explosive finales where the different surviving enclaves are once again thrust into a single environment.
Given other well-received additions like proximity chat inWarzone 2.0, the fact that these branching circles split the playerbase into intimate areas makes all the more sense, fostering tense and focused interactions between smaller groups of players. While it may seem fairly inconsequential considering themany other changes inWarzone 2.0, the importance of these new splitting circles from a pacing and replayability perspective is huge.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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