To the point that players are plagued by never-ending updates that come in at enormous download sizes. It has become a real issue, especially for South African players who may not all have access to lightning-fast fibre internet speeds. So until Starlink delivers GBps download speeds from space, some of our teammates will need a few days to download the new 57GB update for Modern Warfare: Warzone.

The new update brings with it Season 6 of the beloved battle royale title, which features some improved gameplay along with a whole whack of new content. Although Warzone is free-to-play in itself, players have to bear the brunt of massive never-ending gigantic updates. 

Looking past the issue of data-draining downloads, many players have been complaining about the sheer size of these files shamelessly filling up their hard-drives. This is especially an issue when it comes to console players, who have to go through the laborious task of implementing extra space when drives fill up. 

Here are the official figures for the new update according to platform:

• PlayStation 4: 19.3GB
• Xbox: 22.66GB
• PC: 57GB

One of the biggest changes coming to the wonderful world of Warzone, is the addition of a brand new subway system. Ironically, when Respawn inc found out about the expected addition of a train system, it went ahead and destroyed the train system in Apex Legends, the other big free-to-play battle royale title. Sneaky.

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The biggest addition in Season 4 Reloaded is the upping of the Warzone player count from 150 to 200. While having to contend with 150 players all looking to steal that highly sought after victory, you’ll have to try even harder now that 50 extra players are being lobbed into Verdansk, Warzone’s battle royale map.

Beyond the extra 50 players, Supply Run Contracts have also been added into the game. Players who accept these contracts will be tasked with finding a specific Buying Station before competing squads, with their reward being some heavy discounts on the items available to purchase during a match. The Spotter Scope has also been added to Warzone which will allow players to scout ahead without that irritating glint that gives away your position.

Oh, and if you’re not a Warzone fan and prefer that traditional multiplayer, you can expect some new stuff in this update too. A new sniper rifle has been added, the Rytec AMR, which can be unlocked through in-game challenges. A new map, Cheshire Park, and game mode, Team Defender, also make their way into the game. It’s been a hot minute since we’ve played Team Defender but it’s actually one of my favourite game modes in Call of Duty. Like a mix between Capture The Flag and King of the Hill, it’s a super intense match.

The new update should be live tomorrow morning and is estimated to be roughly 30GB, which isn’t fantastic but still much better than some of Modern Warfare’s previous updates.

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In a statement published on Twitter last night, Activision writes, “While we look forward to playing the new seasons of Modern Warfare, Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile, now is not the time…right now it’s time for those speaking up for equality, justice and change to be seen and heard.”

pic.twitter.com/8uNhuhDGAp

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) June 2, 2020

Activision didn’t go on to include any specifics regarding the delay, just noting that the launch of Season 4 across the various titles has been moved to “later dates.” So without any solid confirmation as to when we can except the new season to drop, it’s anyone’s guess what “later dates” mean.

Season 4 of Modern Warfare was initially meant to kick off this Wednesday on 3 June and would have brought a slew of new content to all current iterations of the game, including multiplayer maps, skins, weapon blueprints and playable characters as well as a new Battle Pass for players to purchase and grind through. These additions will make it into the final release of the season, although when exactly that will be is very up in the air.

(Source: Digital Trends)

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We all knew it was coming, right? Living in the year 2020 it’s honestly baffling that a battle royale mode wasn’t added to Modern Warfare sooner. But given how much effort has clearly gone into Warzone it makes sense why Warzone is only launching months after the original game released. Beyond the more obvious tweaks to the Call of Duty formula, the developers are clearly doing their best to place Warzone above and beyond their competitors.

While a lot of information had already been leaked, Activision has now gone ahead and confirmed all the details regarding this latest release. Warzone will feature two different game modes, ‘battle royale’ and ‘plunder’. Battle royale is exactly what you think it is, loads of players fighting in an arena which gradually grows smaller and smaller. Plunder is a little more interesting, with players having to fight one another and complete objectives to earn money with the highest earner winning the match.

Warzone will also feature vehicles, both land and air-based, and introduces a new system known as the Gulag. If you’re killed during a match, you’ll have an opportunity to fight for your return to the game with a 1v1 deathmatch in a dank-looking gulag. If you win against your opponent, you’ll be thrown back into Warzone except this time you won’t have any second chances. You’ll have to wait your turn to get back to the action, but you can kill time by throwing rocks at the players busy fighting it out in the showers. What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon?

Warzone is also compatible with cross-play, meaning that you can play with friends on any platform, something that is becoming somewhat of an industry standard. The same is true for Modern Warfare‘s base game multiplayer but it’s still good to see that Activision is continuing the trend of establishing an interlinked community.

Call of Duty: Warzone launches today at 18:00 CAT and will be a 20GB download for people who already have Modern Warfare installed. If you don’t have the base game on your hard drive, you’re looking at around a 100GB download. Yikes. Have fun playing the game whenever you finish clearing out space on your device.

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The current landscape of the video game industry is one that is littered with battle royales. Given the outlandish success of games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds over the past three years, everyone has been on the “Last One Standing” hype train. Call of Duty got into it last year with Black Ops VI’s Blackout mode which was actually pretty great. Now it seems like Infinity Ward is pushing for a return to the genre with Warzone in Modern Warfare.

Launching as a standalone game, players who have already purchased Modern Warfare will be able to access through in-game menus while everyone else will have to use a separate launcher. What is perhaps most interesting is that this standalone will be free-to-play and will tie into Modern Warfare’s existing battle pass and reward tiers.

In terms of gameplay, it’s all very familiar. 200 players parachute down into a gigantic arena, stitched together from the outlines of the already large Ground War maps and will feature some map locations iconic to Modern Warfare such as Vacant, Killhouse and Scrapyard. There also seems to be an emphasis on “plunder” the in-game currency that will be used to purchase items during a match.

Yet what stands out to me as most exciting is the Gulag. Unlike most Battle Royale games, death isn’t necessarily the end in Warzone. Players who die will be sent to the Gulag where they’ll go up against an enemy 1v1 with the winner making a triumphant return to the game.

Are those features enough to see Warzone compete against the titanic forces of Fortnite and the more recently popular Apex: Legends? That remains to be seen, but given Call of Duty’s massive influence and the fact that it’s free, I can certainly see them making some kind of dent in the market.

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The controversy surrounds a scenario in the game called “Highway of Death”. The player, as an embedded CIA operative overlooking a Middle Eastern desert highway, is told how “The Russians bombed it … killing the people trying to escape”. The scenario resembles an incident in the 1990-1 Gulf War, also called the “Highway of Death”, when the United States and its allies attacked a large retreating Iraqi convoy on Highway 80 that resulted in mass casualties, and later, accusations against the American military for undue force.

But the game crucially places Russians, rather than Americans, as responsible for the killing. This allusion to a Russian-made atrocity has led to accusations against Activision, the game’s production company, for blatant Russophobia. In a predictable clash between an American developer and the Russian media, the game has been denounced by Russian journalists and gamers as pure US propaganda.

This is not the first time the Call of Duty series has provoked controversy. In 2009, an earlier version of the game featured a level called “No Russian” in which the player takes on the role of a CIA undercover agent, actively assisting a terrorist cell in a massacre of civilians at a Russian airport. Controversy does little to negatively impact sales, with avid gamers undeterred by the bad press.

The complexity of war

In defence of the game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is mostly set in the fictional country of Urzikstan. Activision makes no claim to historical accuracy, stressing that the game does not represent real-world events.

Drawing on a range of recent conflicts as well as terrorist attacks, the game is clearly not a simple reworking of the Iraq War. Its developer Infinity Ward has consistently drawn attention to the way in which the game draws inspiration from real-life events, but creates its own narratives.

Call of Duty is not the war-glorifying game you might expect. Rather, it sets out to depict the “moral complexity” and “burden” of military life. In-game characters highlight the ambiguity of modern warfare, asking “where do we draw the line?” when faced with escalating violence, and recognising themselves as “killers” but equally “pawns”. Quotes from Hannah Arendt and Aristotle flash up on screen to add to the intellectual gravitas.

The Highway to Death sits alongside a range of uncomfortable moments that underline the visual horror of war. They include an operative throwing an innocent civilian, straitjacketed with explosives, to his death during a terrorist attack on London as well as a waterboarding scene with the player cast as victim, and two young children forced to defend themselves from an attacker in their own home.

Meanwhile, the game’s depiction of Russians is more nuanced than critics claim. A caricature Russian villain, General Barkov, is identified as a renegade officer acting outside of Kremlin jurisdiction, while cooperative missions feature Russian military allies. And in the Middle East, the game avoids an “us” versus “them” polarity, with the player, as CIA operative “Alex”, working alongside Urzik locals including Farah Karim, an impressively depicted female freedom fighter, with whom he sides against the US government.

Playing propaganda

But it would be wrong to class the game as neatly apolitical as its makers have claimed. The broader picture is that the blockbuster franchise functions as a piece of “soft power” propaganda, preaching an all-American outlook on foreign affairs informed by Western ideals.

First released in 2003, just two years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the original Call of Duty was set in World War II and offered players the chance to put the complicated contemporary world to one side, and for America to “win” again. Call of Duty pushes a decidedly pro-American agenda, much like the US Army’s own first-person shooter, America’s Army (2002), designed as a recruitment tool and released at a similar time to the first Call of Duty game. I argue that such games have helped facilitate the reassertion of American symbolic power.

The series continues to be known today for its gung-ho, shoot-first attitude, where ground troops know best and diplomacy falters – as one frustrated character relates: “Let’s just take the gloves off.” Call of Duty remains a call to duty for players – they are enlisted on the side of America (and sometimes the British) to fight virtual wars across the globe and clock up much-needed victories.

The latest iteration features a largely generic plot involving Al Qatala (reminiscent of Al Qaeda) and stolen chemical weapons. Arguably, Call of Duty is trapped in the past and is best understood as a game about lingering American post 9/11 anxieties. In this way, the focus on its depiction of Russia is misguided. Criticism should rather be directed at what the title says about America.

The controversy over the “Highway to Death” scenario exposes not only the ongoing culture war between Russia and the US, but the extent to which video games now deliver photo-realistic immersive stories that willingly conflate real and imagined events.

And so on some levels, the Call of Duty controversy reflects our current fake news society and a growing confusion over right paths, truth and accuracy. When asked: “Where do we draw the line on this, sir?” on matters of warfare and interrogation, the hero Captain Price replies: “You draw the line wherever you need it, Sergeant.” The same could now be said of issues of accuracy, realism and even morality in the digital age.

• John Wills is Reader in American History and Culture, University of Kent
• This article first appeared on The Conversation

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