One persistent rumor that won’t go away is that this year’s Call of Duty will once again have a battle royale mode. Last year’s Black Ops 4 focus on such a mode made the community a bit wary about having yet another battle royale just a year later. Now, a known leaker is hinting that a Modern Warfare battle royale mode may indeed be a possibility.
The leak comes from YouTuber TheGamingRevolution (no relation), or TGR for short. TGR recently made a series of tweets where they claimed that they had a source who’s either close to or actually inside developer Infinity Ward that would answer questions regarding the game. As part of this, someone asked regarding a battle royale mode, which lead to the source confirming that it’s “100% a thing.”
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In the tweet, TGR’s source revealed a bit more about the mode, stating that it was almost dropped. “We considered dropping it from the game at one point,” stated TGR’s alleged source. “But we reworked it a ton, and we really think it’s going to stand out from other battle royales in its current state. More info soon.”
Last year’s Call of Duty Black Ops 4 controversially focused on the Blackout battle royale mode seemingly at the cost of not having a solo campaign, although Treyarch disputed that claim. This year’s Modern Warfare reboot however will still retain the single-player campaign. This could be the reason why Infinity Ward is supposedly bringing battle royale back — the issue was never with the mode itself in Black Ops 4, but that it appeared as though it was replacing the campaign.
In addition to the return of battle royale, TGR’s source also hinted at other changes coming to Modern Warfare. One of these changes focused on yet another controversial aspect of its predecessor: tying DLC weapons to loot boxes. In Black Ops 4 players could only get DLC weapons from luck based “supply drops” (the game’s version of loot boxes). For Modern Warfare however, it seems that not only will the weapons not be part of a loot box system, they might also be coming for free. “As of right now, we want all DLC weapons to come free for everyone,” stated the source. “This may change though, you’ll have to ask Activision that one.”
Now Activision confirmed that the game would not have a traditional season pass, and instead release maps for free some time ago. However, this is the first time that mention has been made of weapons also being free. With the lack of a season pass, some may players may have worried that the company would double down on the loot boxes instead, so this is welcome news if the leak is true.
Other bits of information that TGR’s source hinted at include the possibility of Clan Wars returning, prestige levels, and a third-person mode. The last one was specifically stated by the source as not returning despite them loving the mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (the only game in the series to have it). Another feature the source mentioned that Firing Range would not be returning from certain older games. They stated that with players now being able to change classes in game, it was deemed no longer necessary.
Remember that all of the above assertions are unconfirmed and should be taken with a big spoonful of salt. However, TGR has provided credible leaks in the past. These include them leaking information on the Zombies modes of both Black Ops 3 and Black Ops 4. More recently however, they also leaked the details on the game’s beta. Here, TGR stated that Modern Warfare would get a test on the PlayStation 4 first before getting a second on on other platforms. That said, the dates they reported were a bit off (their date for the open beta for all platforms turned out to be that for the PS4 test), though this could have simply been the studio moving them around after it had been reported.