Call of Duty: Warzone’s expansion to 200 players means insta-death for me

Activision and Infinity Ward announced today that Call of Duty: Warzone will have a new mode where 200 players can fight in a battle royale match.

The mode will team people up in quads, or groups of four, and throw them into the same-size match where previously only 150 players could battle each other. For me, this raises the prospect of insta-death. As you may recall, as I have broadcast it over and over again, I have won one match in Warzone since its March 11 launch date, despite having played more than 255 matches.

In its first two months, the free-to-play Warzone mode was downloaded more than 60 million times.

This 200-player take is a new limited-time mode, and you should be able to play traditional 150-player matches as well. But for those who dive into it starting at 11 p.m. Pacific time tonight (June 29), you’ll likely find that there are a lot more people landing where you typically might parachute. This is a challenge because you parachute into a part of the map with only a pistol. You then hunt around to find more weapon loot as fast as possible and fight off anyone else from other teams trying to do the same.

I always try to avoid the obvious places where everyone will land, even if that means coasting for a longer time while parachuting. But it looks like that will become a lot harder, and I’ll just have to try to survive dropping into a highly populated zone.

The update for Season Four also includes a sniper rifle, the Rytec AMR; a Spotter Scope, which marks enemies without counter-detection; a Juggernaut Royale mode; a Gulag weapons update (the Gulag is where you go for one last chance for revival after you’ve been killed on the map); and a new Contract called Supply Run. The game also has a new operator, Roze, a new multiplayer map and mode (Cheshire Park and Team Defender).