Call Of Duty: Warzone has been out for a few weeks now, and it's fair to say the game is a massive hit. Not that this should come as a major surprise to anyone. It is, after all, a free-to-play game based on one of the most popular video game franchises in the universe. Oh, and it was released just as countries around the world went into lockdown. I imagine that helped.
So here we all are, stuck inside with not much else to do. Incredibly, I'm one of the many people who's been drawn to Warzone over the past couple of weeks. I should clarify: I've never enjoyed Call Of Duty. I don't hate it, and I can certainly see the appeal of it, but I've just never had any interest whatsoever in any of the games. Not even the one in space that everyone else despises, and I'm a massive nerd.
Still, Warzone is free, I'm writing about it a lot for work at the moment, and a lot of my friends are playing it. More than anything else, I miss my pals and wanted something to do with them of an evening, so I dove in.
I'm still very much what you might call "massively sh*t" at Warzone, but I'm still having fun with it. I've also learned an awful lot about human behaviour during my time with the game. Specifically, I've discovered a number of subtle ways to tell if your teammates are awful stinking garbage people.
See, I don't always play with my friends. Sometimes I drop with strangers, and sometimes these strangers reveal themselves to be awful. I don't mean that they're awful at the game, I mean they're awful human beings. At least, I'm basing this entirely on how they conduct themselves on the battlefield. Maybe I'm wrong.
Or maybe this whole thing is a joke piece about a video game that shouldn't be taken too seriously but will inevitably lead to people getting super annoyed. Who's to say which way it'll go? Let's take a look at what I've learned while playing Warzone so far, and we'll find out together.
Over-reliance On Vehicles
Activision
Have you dropped with a teammate who insists on going straight for the nearest chopper or armoured truck? Is their strategy to use that vehicle not to get from A - B safely, but to keep hold of it for the entire game until they can use it to outlast the rest of the players in the final circle?
Bad news, you're playing with an awful human being.
Don't get me wrong, I understand vehicles are a legit part of Warzone and can come in handy for a variety of reasons. But using a truck to cruise around for the entire game looking for unsuspecting players to mow down just feels dirty to me. Where's the honour in that?
But that's nothing compared to the players who hoard choppers and use them to fly high above the final circle in an effort to stay alive while the other players finish each other off. I want to win too, but not like this. Never like this.
They Clearly Have Plenty Of Armour To Spare... And Won't Share
Call of Duty: Warzone
Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. You've just took a whole mess of bullets to the face in an attempt to keep a full squad of three at bay while one of your teammates crawls to safety and revives.
You stagger into the farmhouse where you've all holed up for the time being and ask if anyone has spare armour. Even one would do for now. Silence. Your colleagues are now fully kitted out with armour while you're one good headshot away from the Gulag.
Whizz! A bullet flies through the window of the farmhouse and lightly pings one of your fully armoured-up teammates. It didn't do much damage, and they've lost maybe half a bar of armour as a result. You watch in disbelief - and still massively vulnerable - as that same teammate casually whips out some more armour and patches themselves up in front of you.
You ask again, as conversationally as you can manage, if anyone happens to maybe possibly have a bit of armour that can be spared. Silence once again.
They Take Shots Before You've All Agreed On A Strategy
This one really mashes my potatoes. There's nothing more satisfying than knowing you've got the drop on a team in Warzone. A bunch of snipers are camped out on a nearby roof and have no idea you're looking down at them planning your move.
I probably don't need to tell you that the best thing to do here is to talk to the rest of your team and come up with the most efficient way to coordinate an attack and wipe the enemy squad out. Granted, this isn't always possible if you're not using voice chat, but let's assume you are.
It's a real pain in the arse then, when one trigger-happy member of your own squad decides to take a shot at the bad guys without telling the rest of you. They miss, alerting the entire team to your position and eradicating any chance you had of getting a nice, clean team wipe.
They Decide To Drop Miles From The Rest Of You
Activision
Whenever I play with random people, there's always one player who decides to drop as far away from the rest of us as possible. While the rest of us have agreed to drop as a unit on the prison and take the four towers (a great vantage point) one absolute maverick decides to take a solo trip to Superstore, where they're almost immediately gunned down by a full squad who did have the sense to drop together.
I've been on both sides of this, and it's definitely more fun to be on the team that picks off the idiot who dropped alone. More often than not, they lose in the Gulag and it's down to the rest of us to buy them back rather than spend that money on something useful. Like a player who isn't a complete tool.
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When all's said and done, you shouldn't really take me too seriously. These things are pretty annoying, I'm not going to pretend they aren't. But if that's how you really get your kicks playing the game, who am I to stop you? Just maybe consider that playing Solo would be better for both you and any potential teammates that are going to put through your nonsense though, eh?
Are there any particular things other players do in Warzone that drive you crazy? We'd love to hear all about it over on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
Topics: Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward, Warzone, Cod, Call of Duty, Battle Royale, Activision