Call of Duty: Vanguard is just around the corner, which means new content for the battle royale element with COD: Warzone. Following Vanguard, Warzone seems to want to make up for the much-needed additional content with the new map that has been talked about for a while now.
Most of the talk is about how they will handle the Pacific-themed map, with other brand new features never seen before. So to prepare for this, we’ll go over a number of the more recent changes to get you back on track with the state of the COD Warzone.
The article will also explore several things you can expect from the next season following Vanguard’s release. And finally, a short section about more controversial changes to Warzone that will help with the whole hacker issue. But it also seems to have quite a few unforeseen consequences and a bunch of very clear consequences. Whether this will see a rise or drop in the consistent players, we’ll still have to wait and see.
COD Warzone Season 6 Recap Updates
The latest live COD Warzone update with season 6 added quite a bit, so let’s go over it with anticipation for the release of COD Vanguard and what it will mean for Warzone going forward.
At the beginning of October, the expectedly large 40GB patch was rolled out. This included the season 6 battle pass, reaching 100 tiers. It also introduced a new operator, new weapon blueprints, and new operator skins. Within the battle pass, there were also the new Black Ops Cold War-themed guns at tier 15 and tier 31.
One of the more substantial additions was the new game mode, with scopes and scatterguns, bringing a new dynamic to Warzone. This COD Warzone update comes with a mode that makes you choose between getting up close and personal and scoping people out from afar.
Rebirth Resurgence builds on the map and rules that COD players know and love, ensuring only a handful of weapons are available to players. As a result, only the players with the sharpest aim remain. Naturally, this means that there are no load-outs and players start with the Marshall in every game.
There have also been a few mixups with the map, adding new points of interest to play off of this COD Warzone update. First are the fissures. These were triggered by explosive charges that caused absolutely massive and devastating seismic events in Verdansk, causing large cracks to go straight through the stadium and downtown region.
The next point of interest is the bunkers, which consist of various passageways and rooms full of high-value loot. Be sure to make it to the surface before anybody else does.
The COD Warzone update also brought about several direct changes to the gameplay. As we covered before, there are 2 new guns in the game, specifically the .410 Ironhide and the Grav, as well as one new melee weapon on launch, the battle-axe. Of course, they have also been added to the map as loot you can find to try them out before throwing them into your loadouts.
Alongside this new way to spice up load-outs are also a couple of new Gulag load-outs and a slight redesign of the Gulag. And lastly, for the loot-oriented stuff, there is new loot too. Plunder respawn behavior has also been altered to ensure that gamers have additional dynamic infiltrations. The RC-XD killstreak has also been removed indefinitely until any further communication from the developers.
Beyond these, there have also been several small Warzone patch notes like fixes to collision problems, redone animations to look better or more correct, fixes to audio bugs, and more. Additional weapons were also added with the release of more content. One of these additional firearms is the LAPA, a submachine gun with a slightly slower rate of fire, and another melee weapon is the Hammer & Sickle for any of the Soviet operators out there.
Speaking of guns, a number of the BOCW weapons released have also seen balance changes, as they are new guns and it’s pretty much expected that there will be tweaks to how they feel and play. Other new content includes Alex Mason, who has been available since the launch of season 6, including his Ultra Rarity Operator Skin at tier 100 of the battle pass.
Next is Fuze, who was added mid-season, as well as Arthur Kingsley, who is available immediately as a pre-order bonus for Call of Duty: Vanguard. In the store, there has also been the addition of a ton of new bundles to choose from. The Berserker bundle gave you the weapon blueprint for the battle axe, the executioner’s finishing move, and three cosmetic items. It also comes with an additional tier to skip a level in the battle pass.
Next is an operator bundle for Fuze, including Fuze, two skins for him, two weapon blueprints, an animated calling card and emblem, and the can opener weapon charm. For a bit of a sci-fi bundle, is the zombie zapper, giving you a retro sci-fi-looking shotgun blueprint. Finally, there’s the Tagger vs. Big Joke Ultimate Pack, including two legendary operator outfits: the clown-faced sad face for Garcia and the graffiti-inspired Sign Painter for Wolf.
Beyond these two operator skins, there are also five new weapon blueprints, four of which are legendary. It comes with several additional cosmetic items for your profile. Topping it off with a decent 5,000 COD points lets you spend it on whatever you fancy, whether it be a gift for friends, a battle pass, or another bundle.
Finally, of course, is the return of The Haunting, the Halloween-based event in every COD Warzone update around this time of year. It features the Ghost Of Verdansk game mode, which forces Verdansk into nightfall and has challenges that end with the prototypical LAPA event reward.
The basics of the Ghost of Verdansk are that players that die redeploy as ghosts who can become human again after collecting three souls. To assist them in this task are several spooky abilities, and the winner is the last team with a human left alive.
One of the biggest new additions is the fear meter, which has to be managed and, if left unchecked, would leave you seeing hallucinations in the game. The fear meter starts to fluctuate when being shot at or hit by enemies, when camping, seeing dead people or ghosts, and having squadmates downed and eliminated.
This will be a great COD Warzone update to add some more variety to the gameplay. Of course, there are also ways to lower the fear meter like killing enemies, including ghosts, reviving squadmates, completing contrast, and remaining on sacred ground.
Now for something interesting. Since ghosts are not allowed to carry any weapons, they can remain useful by helping collect souls from other players that are alive. Some of the abilities include:
- Charged Jump: This allows you to leap high into the air while controlling your fall.
- Teleportation: You perform teleportation.
- Spectral Blast: A powerful blast is used to stun enemies or damage and disable any vehicle.
- Soul-steal: A finishing move you need to perform to replenish your soul.
For human players, besides killing the ghosts, the best way to deal with them is to be on sacred grounds. These are marked by glowing blue circles and beams of life, as well as a handy little marker on the mini-map.
Ghosts aren’t allowed to step on these grounds but can make efforts to damage and eventually destroy them. So be sure you’re still ready to move and take the fight elsewhere to avoid getting pinned.
What Do The Next Couple Of Warzone Patch Notes Tell Us For The Rest Of Season 6?
As we know, season 6 is about to end in a month. This has led to the introduction of the next major COD Warzone update. Honestly, besides the rotation of game modes, we don’t really know much, as they’re probably going to add more weapons, bundles, and operators like usual. So instead, let’s talk about a fairly large and controversial topic that might be affecting a COD Warzone update soon:
The eventual implementation in a new COD Warzone update of the Ricochet anti-cheat software
The new anti-cheat that’s going to roll out for Vanguard and eventually be implemented on all of the other modern COD titles. First, let’s talk about the good.
The main thing is that it fully relies on the user’s PC rather than the server. This will mean that once any sort of cheating is detected, not only will you be removed from the game, but the computer will be given the punishment for the hacking, not your account. Why is this a big deal?
Well, it’s because the current anti-cheat can and does detect cheating and punish hackers accordingly, but it gives these punishments out to the accounts of the users. And as Warzone is a free-to-play game, they can just make a new account with no problem. Using Ricochet, this possibility is pretty much secured, as the information is directly gotten from the PC of the hacker.
Ricochet has its limitations since it is a kernel-level anti-cheat. Kernel-level drivers allow the program to have pretty much the highest level of permissions possible for a program. This allows the anti-cheat to do what it does, sure, but if a breach of security were to happen at Activision and you’re online when it happens, there could be massive consequences. It could be from users’ bricking systems by messing with the kernel software’s code, or mass data theft of users’ personal data.
Naturally, Activision claims they have made multiple barriers to keep any attack contained within Activision’s side and not compromise users. But other users may find that Activision’s basic access to their systems is already too much for them. We expect, as well, that this will be a mandatory COD Warzone update once it starts being implemented. As a result, some players may choose not to install the COD Warzone update and instead abandon the game entirely.
Fortunately, you won’t have to worry about hackers or Activision snooping through your data 24/7 as the software automatically shuts down after Warzone is closed. So if you’re a bit more on the cautious side when it comes to managing your data, this COD Warzone update might be too much for you.
What We Know About The COD Warzone Update For Season 7
The most obvious features will definitely be the introduction of WWII weapons into the COD Warzone, as well as the eternally hyped new Pacific-themed map.
The expected release of this new season is around December 2, 2021, as the end of the roadmap of updates for season 6 is at the end of November. With the last event being called the Last Hours of Verdansk, how Activision will handle this new map and Verdansk is still unclear.
Besides weapons and skins, potentially new vehicles with a WWII aesthetic will also go along with this new map to fit in. And of course, operators from Vanguard and probably a couple of returning ones will be available from season 7 until the next time they decide to mix things up. Based on the expected projections with the release of COD Vanguard as well as what we saw with BOCW, you can pretty much expect every major installment of COD will also affect Warzone. The final detail that is still up in the air is if this numbered season system will continue into Vanguard’s release and implementation in the Warzone, but we guess only time will tell.
