How Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 Successfully Coexist

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (not to be confused with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) is currently a hot topic for many shooter fans lately. Many have cited it as a return to form for the Call of Duty franchise after some missteps lately. 

Alongside the release of Modern Warfare 2 also comes Warzone 2.0, a sequel to the classic Call of Duty Warzone that coincided with the release of Modern Warfare 2019, which itself was considered a massive breath of fresh air for a long stagnating series. 

Warzone itself is a free-to-play Battle Royale rendition of the classic Call of Duty action fans have come to love. It’s considered by many to be among the better games in the rapidly oversaturated Battle Royale genre and for good reason.

Taking the signature gunplay of the new Call of Duty games and infusing it with the chaos of a Battle Royale setting makes for a fresh new spin on the tried-and-true formula the series is known for.

In this piece, I’d like to talk about how Warzone 2.0 and Modern Warfare 2 can coexist in the same space simultaneously and how both games contribute to each other and satisfy a specific niche. 

The biggest advantage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 releasing so close to each other is that it makes Modern Warfare 2 itself seem like a much bigger package. For 70 bucks, players get a full campaign, a highly-replayable Spec Ops game mode that was a hallmark of the original Modern Warfare 2, multiplayer, AND Warzone. 

That is actually insane value to get from a single game in 2022 when many AAA releases don’t even offer half as much content for the same price. 

On top of that Warzone satisfies a different niche for players. While Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer component has all the classic modes you’d expect from the series, as well as the Battlefield-inspired Ground War mode. There’s very little that touches upon the teamwork and chaos that you’d get from Warzone.

Meanwhile, Warzone is at its most fun when you’re playing with a group of friends, and to an extent that’s where these games shine their brightest. While on the other hand Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer is great if you’re spending time by yourself in quick rapid-fire games of Team Deathmatch. 

Warzone 2.0 itself is a general improvement over the first game. With all of its additions being iterative upon the previous game while greatly overhauling the audio-visual fidelity and introducing a brand-spanking new map.

This is really good for the series as one of the biggest problems for Call of Duty as a series was that at some point certain aspects of the games felt way more polished than the rest. Sometimes the multiplayer was great, but the campaign was lackluster.

Other times, the campaign was amazing but the multiplayer was terrible. There were even entries where the Zombies mode was somehow better than the campaign and multiplayer combined. 

Modern Warfare 2 hits a perfect balance where all of its components feel just right and polished enough to feel like a worthy addition to the game. 

On that note, the decision to cut back on the yearly releases is already giving dividends for the series. Letting the developers polish and properly develop all aspects of the game without the worry of a yearly release ensures a significantly better product.

After numerous missteps, Call of Duty, after a good long while, is finally on the right track. UI issues aside, Modern Warfare 2 is a good step forward for the series just as Modern Warfare was back in 2019.

The series still has some of the best gunplay in the business alongside now cutting-edge visual fidelity and an actually good campaign. 

Throw in a largely polished multiplayer experience and a fresh battle royale experience on the side and that’s a recipe for success if I’ve ever seen one. The series still isn’t where it needs to be, especially considering its outright atrocious treatment of middle eastern culture and historical revisionism.

We can only hope that the series uses this momentum to iron out its flaws and try to be little more than playable American propaganda in the future.