Call of Duty: Modern Warfare just started its third season of multiplayer content and managed to accompany that launch with a milestone. Warzone, its free-to-play battle royale mode, has hit over 50 million players since launching on March 10, 2020.
The official Call of Duty Twitter account tweeted out the news and thanked its players through one succinct picture.
https://twitter.com/CallofDuty/status/1248688976514318336
The Call of Duty Twitter account has tweeted out other landmark stats as well. It hit 6 million players in its first 24 hours then 15 million in its first four days and then 30 million in 10 full days. While the rate is obviously slowing up just a bit, the numbers are still quite impressive especially when compared to other battle royales like Apex Legends, which also got 50 million players in one month.
Both the Warzone mode and Modern Warfare as a whole topped their respective PSN charts last month, too, showing that this growth is not just relegated to the battle royale. Modern Warfare has also been the best-selling game of the month since its November 2019 launch except in January where it fell only to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.
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A free-to-play Call of Duty battle royale would have been successful in most other situations, but it’s not difficult to see how Warzone has seen such a surge in this last month. Many have been forced to shelter in place during the current COVID-19 pandemic and given that online gaming has seen historic highs, it’s not outlandish to see a well-known brand like Call of Duty benefiting from having more people stay indoors, especially given its social nature. The situation and recognizable name combined with it having cross-platform play and no paywall makes it an easy game to download during these times, despite the relatively large file size.
