Do I Have To Buy Modern Warfare To Play Warzone?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has a persistent leak. It feels like gamers have known about the upcoming battle royale experience, Warzone, for ages thanks to accidental glitches, map reveals, and data mining. After months of rumors and speculation, Activision has finally dropped a ton of official information, including the fact that it is free-to-play.

You won't have to buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare when Warzone finally launches. According to the official announcement, Call of Duty: Warzone will also feature crossplay and unified progression, meaning console and PC players alike can jump into this massive battle royale map together. Additionally, all the content you've unlocked and progress you've made in Modern Warfare will carry over when Warzone launches. This goes both ways, as players who do not own the full version of Modern Warfare will benefit from their Warzone progress and rewards in Modern Warfare if they purchase it down the line.

The map has to be big because 150 players will be dropping onto at one time. When playing, squads will have a leader who decides where they land. Scattered throughout this considerable range of safe havens and obstacles will be vehicles like trucks, ATVs, and even helicopters to convey players around ... and make them larger targets.

The announcement also confirmed that death is not the end of the game. Rather, killed players are sent to the Gulag where they duke it out 1v1 to earn the right to redeploy. Just an extra bit of gameplay to keep things spicy. Also spicing things up is the limited looting. Guns are the only items you can pick up and anything else will be auto-grabbed. This means players won't have to worry about getting shot in the back while rifling around for a new rifle. 

Players everywhere are ready to try out this new mode. Activision has been teasing its existence for months now, but at last a release date is in sight. Players will be able to hop into Warzone the moment it becomes available — no purchase necessary. To pad this lack of price tag, there will likely be some cosmetics and nudges toward microtransactions, but it looks like you won't need to own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to play Warzone.