Call of Duty: Warzone has been out for a few weeks and finally Infinity Ward has pushed out the first major patch. Apart from a bunch of bug fixes, the battle royale spin-off has been tweaked in terms of economy, weapon balance, and drops. Here’s the highlights of said patch.
Weapons
Patch 1.01 hasn’t made a big change to the overall meta, but has added a few guns to the mix. The 725 Shotgun, MK2 Carbine (Marksman Rifle), EBR-14 (Marksman Rifle), and the .50 GS (Handgun) are now available from Supply Boxes. If a player disconnects when they are downed (Last Stand), they now drop their weapons instead of just disappearing.
Furthermore, fans of the shotguns in Warzone are in for a bit of a bummer. You now can’t kill a fully armored enemy with a single shotgun blast anymore. Stopping power can still make this happen though.
Plunder
Our favorite Warzone mode, Plunder, has also received some tweaks. Most notably, players can no longer stack self-revive kits. This means you can’t rely on getting yourself up all the time anymore. Players that are killed and waiting to be respawn are also punished a little less. If your team finishes a contract, you now get 40% of the payout, even when you’re spectating.
Warzone economy
Lastly, the money economy of Warzone has been tweaked, with a potentially huge effect on the game overall. Although we didn’t highlight this in our review, on of the big problems in Warzone is the fact that you can get your own custom Modern Warfare Loadout pretty easily. You would just go to a Buy Station and purchase a Loadout Drop for $6000.
That price has now been increased to $8,500, making it slightly more difficult to obtain your fully decked out M4A1 after a few minutes. In our opinion this is a step in the right direction, but it may still be a bit too cheap. The great (and sometimes infuriating) part of any battle royale is that everyone starts with the same chance of getting a nice weapon. With the Loadout Drop, you ensure you get your favorite, decked out weapon, including perks and attachments. So we think Infinity Ward could crank the price up even more.
Make sure to check the full patch notes here.