In the age of ongoing games as services and battle royale domination,Call of Duty: Warzonehas stood at the top of the hill right alongside the likes ofFortniteandApex Legends. WhenWarzonefirst released, fans of theCall of Dutyseries were quick to flock to the free-to-play battle royale, rejoicing at the high level of polish present within the game. But times have changed, and over the last few years,Call of Duty: Warzonehas lost some of its hold over players, and many cite the game’s lack of next-gen features as a large contributor to their increasing disinterest.
A next-gen update forWarzonehas been rumored for over a year now, with outlets claiming that the game will receive the patch with every new season update. There’s been no such patch, though, and witheverything occurring at Activisionright now, it seems unlikely that players will get one anytime soon. However, that doesn’t make the next-gen update any less needed.
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Call of Duty: Warzone’s Stuttering Framerate and Cloudy Draw Distance
Call of Duty: Warzoneis no longer a technical marvel. When it originally released over a year ago, the fact thatWarzone’s massive mapand huge 150-player lobby functioned at all was impressive. But gamers are now a year into the next generation of consoles, and while some are still struggling to get their hands on them, those with PlayStation 5s and Xbox Series S/Xs are starting to notice some gaping cracks inWarzone’s technical design.
Framerate issues are prevalent in every match ofCall of Duty: Warzone. Even if players have the best internet connection available, and they’re the only one in the household using it,Warzonewill still chug and stutter along at times, just as Verdansk’s circling train does. Now, there aresome ways to fix this on PC, with frame syncing and cache shadow options being available to players to customize theirWarzoneexperience so that it best suits their rig and their connection. Unfortunately, console players have nothing in the way of customizable settings, so trying to achieve a higher framerate is simply impossible on current gen consoles. This is especially irritating when players come up against PC players, who always seem to be just that split-second faster on the trigger, leaving players to just disable crossplay for good.
Warzonealso suffers from a pretty dismal draw distance; it’s often the case that players at the top of a ridge have difficulty seeing opponents a few hundred metres away from them on the ground, which doesn’t really help out the sniper in the squad. This issue is most noticeable when first dropping in to the match. The ground will stutter and shift suddenly, the buildings will clip in and out of the map, and weapons and objectives will often take a while to spawn in after landing. This doesn’t often affect gameplay in a major way, but on next-gen consoles thisunclear draw distancedatesWarzonesignificantly, which shouldn’t be the case for a game that only came out a year ago.
A true next-gen update could fix both of these issues fairly easily by giving players graphical options, allowing them to customize their ownWarzoneexperience. For instance, anFOV slider has been a much requested featuresince day one, and the ability to disable shadows for higher framerates could be a nice touch. Regardless of how many players actually end up using these options, their inclusion would go a long way to keep long-time fans of the game happy.
One of the biggest draws for the new generation of home consoles is their “lightning-fast” SSD (solid-state drive) technology. Theimplementation of SSDs in PS5sand Xbox Series S/Xs allows for incredibly fast load times. For example,Spider-Man: Miles Moralesloads in mere seconds on PS5, compared to the 30-seconds or so that it takes to load on PS4, being 70% faster in general. While not every game loads this fast on next-gen consoles,Warzonecould certainly benefit from some SSD integration.
However, this task is a little more tricky than it seems, as an average crossplay-enabled match ofWarzonesees players from a range of old and new-gen consoles and PCs come together in one lobby. So, while theintegration of SSD technologywould, in theory, lower load times dramatically, it wouldn’t be this case for every player, meaning that lobbies would be spawning in at different times.
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Making The Most of the DualSense
While it would only matter to PlayStation fans,Warzonecould make great use of the PS5’s DualSense controller. Games likeFar Cry 6andMarvel’sGuardians of the Galaxyhave showcased just how much the DualSense’s adaptive triggers and haptic feedback can enhance the gameplay experience, mimicking the different actions the player-character is performing on screen and thus immersing the player even more into the world of the game. WhileCall of Dutyhas includedsome adaptive trigger support inVanguardand some very neat adaptive trigger and haptic feedback support inBlack Ops: Cold War,Warzoneis yet to receive any DualSense functionality.
It should be noted that the adaptive triggers on the DualSense aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially not for multiplayer, with many players considering it an unnecessary challenge and distraction from the intensity of the gameplay. Still, theDualSense’s new featuresare beloved by many, and their addition toWarzonecould be enough to convince some players to return, as the addition would make the game seem like more of a next-gen title.
WhileWarzone’s new Pacific mapis launching tomorrow and is sure to bring plenty of new vehicles, weapons, strategies, and quality of life improvements, it won’t really get to the heart of the problem for many next-gen gamers. Hopefully, the next-gen patch is still on the cards and arrives soon, asWarzonemight end up losing some players if it never comes.
Call of Duty: Warzoneis available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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