Call Of Duty: Warzone's Cold War Integration Has Some Players Worried

Call of Duty: Warzone has become one of the most popular games in the world, so it's easy to see why there is a lot of excitement around the battle royale's second season of content. Players, however, are worried about how the merger between Warzone and Black Ops Cold War will work.

"[We're] concerned," said Redditor realcoray in a thread about the recent Warzone cinematic trailer. "While the engine and mechanics are going to be the same, we're all anticipating a whole bunch of new things, a lot of which will be broken in ways that will take us time to understand."

Warzone is going to merge with Black Ops Cold War on December 16 after the update was pushed back a week. Activision and Treyarch have released some info about how the merger will work--the progression system will reset and sync between both games and Modern Warfare--but players still have a number of unanswered questions that they hope to get resolved before the merger.

"Activision, Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Raven--none of them have been straightforward...as to how this integration will work," said Redditor Simpleblackmatch. "They could take a break from all the teaser videos, marketing efforts, etc. and just be open with the community with what we can expect, how things will work, future plans."

Activision has made three posts, one in November and two more this month, about how the merger will work later this month, but all three focus on how progression, store purchases, and cosmetics will change with the integration. (We also know a new Warzone map is coming.) Dedicated players still wonder how new mechanics, like wildcards, specific perks, and new attachments will work once both games are integrated. The wildcard feature, for example, would turn Warzone's loadout system upside down by letting players "break the rules" in how loadouts are built. Players can use them to equip two primary weapons and the ghost perk, which is currently impossible in Warzone. We don't know if wildcards will come to the battle royale, though.

Players were also concerned about how Warzone would "feel" after the merger before Activision confirmed that the battle royale would run on Infinity Ward's IW 8.0 game engine and not migrate to Black Ops Cold War's engine. Now they are worried the weapon balance in Warzone once Black Ops Cold War's 30 weapons are added on December 16. Infinity Ward has had to issue a number of nerfs to weapons like the Grau and the Bruen MK9 since Warzone's launch.

This is the first time that a battle royale mode has been straddled between two different Call of Duty games. Black Ops 4's mode, Blackout, was left behind as Treyarch confirmed that Warzone is "the path forward for the series." There are bound to be a lot of issues with the merger--Warzone already deals with game-breaking bugs on a regular basis. One player figured out how to spawn infinite juggernaut suits recently.

Despite these complaints from a small and vocal section of the battle royale's playerbase, Warzone continues to be one of the most popular games of the year. Players will probably have to continue to deal with new glitches, weapon balance issues, and other unexpected changes when the games merge later this month.