The originalCall of Duty: Warzoneis shutting down on June 11, 2025, as recently confirmed by Activision. The originalCall of Duty: Warzonehit the scene in 2020 as a free-to-play experience tied to 2019’sCall of Duty: Modern Warfarereboot. It was a smash hit, largely thanks to its Verdansk map and interesting battle royale innovations like the Gulag.TheCall of Duty: Warzonethat exists today is virtually unrecognizable when compared to the original. Activision made sweeping changes to theCall of Duty: WarzoneVerdansk map, in line with other battle royale games on the market. Eventually, it dumped Verdansk entirely and replaced it with thePacific map Caldera, tied toCall of Duty: Vanguard. Caldera was not nearly as popular as Verdansk, leading to plummeting interest in the battle royale.RELATED:Call of Duty: Warzone’s Latest Update Adds More Restrictions to RankedDespite this, Activision kept the servers live for the originalCall of Duty: Warzone. The servers remained live even after the launch ofCall of Duty: Warzone 2.0. But nowActivision has rebrandedWarzone 2.0and is just calling itCall of Duty: Warzone, while the actual originalCall of Duty: Warzoneis being shut down on September 21. Doing this will allow Activision’s teams to focus on the new version of the game and projects likeCall of Duty: Warzone Mobile, which is expected to launch in the months ahead.
A massive downside to this is that players who purchasedCall of Duty: Warzoneskinscan no longer access them in battle royale format. The skins and all other cosmetics forCall of Duty: Warzoneare still available to use in the coreCall of Dutyexperiences they were tied to, likeModern Warfare,Black Ops Cold War, andVanguard, but since many exclusively played the battle royale experience, it’s safe to say some fans aren’t going to be happy about this.
Most fans likely won’t care all that much about the originalCall of Duty: Warzonebeing shut down, as they have likely moved on to the sequel long ago. The game formerly known asCall of Duty: Warzone 2.0currently has three maps for players to battle it out on, with theVondel map added as part of the big Season 4 update. Rumor has it that yet another newCall of Dutybattle royale map is on the horizon, but official details to that effect are unavailable at the time of this writing.
Call of Duty: Warzonewill be available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One until September 21.
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