Press F to pay respects: Warzone Caldera goes offline
With Warzone Caldera, the last piece of the original Call of Duty: Warzone is now also offline. The Caldera map was all that remained when Activision pulled the plug on the original game last year. Rebirth Island, Fortune’s keep, all smaller maps were relegated to digital obscurity. Warzone Caldera was the new name, to differentiate the product from the new Warzone 2.0. Of course, it’s impossible to keep supporting every old game endlessly, but fans of the original Warzone aren’t happy.
Just a little while to go
Caldera won’t go down immediately, but it won’t take very long either. The plug will be pulled on September 21 this year. This also means that all progression disappears. Activision indicates that it has taken the step because it wants to focus on new projects.
“As of September 21, 2023, Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera will be shipping so our teams can focus on future Call of Duty content, including the new free-to-play Warzone experience,” Activision said in its blog post announcing the news. Warzone 2.0 is the so-called “free to play experience” by the way. The game was released last year as a standalone release, where the original Warzone was a game mode within CoD Modern Warfare.
The fans grumble
But not everyone is eager to make the forced switch to Warzone 2.0. Yes, 2.0 has new maps, new game modes and a lot of quality of life updates. But gamers are gamers and seeing all your hard-earned progress disappear into thin air along with Caldera is just a shame. 2.0 has its own launcher, so content cannot simply be transferred. Caldera was originally a kind of peace pipe so that content from players of the original Warzone could be preserved. Apparently Activision thinks the mourning period has lasted long enough.
But that peace pipe Warzone players have never enjoyed smoking. The Verdansk map has always been a favorite for battle royale enthusiasts. Caldera was introduced after Verdansk was removed from the game. Many millions of players turned their noses up at first. It was even said that Caldera had killed the game. However, it didn’t get that far and players continued to play the map. And so all that protest did not come to much. The beloved Verdansk map has only returned for Warzone Mobile.
As often happens when people rightly or wrongly fear losing something dear, real conspiracy theories have arisen. Earlier this year, it was suggested that Activision paid cheaters to scare people out of Warzone 1. This happened in the context of multiplayer and professional esports gamers refusing to make the switch to Warzone 2.0. Evidence never came, of course, but the fact was that a mass migration from Warzone 1 to 2.0 initially failed to materialize. In the meantime, most players have left, but there are still plenty who prefer the original.
The eternal problem with ‘live service’ games
Everyone must have had it in mind when they first started investing money in skins for the original Warzone: this game goes offline once, and then everything goes. Yet it is the main subject of the many complaints that are made under Activision’s tweet. An ’80’s workout’ skin, a ’90’s Grunge’ skin, a skin inspired by Ripley from Aliens and American Football uniforms, they will obviously be missed. People simply get quite attached to their skins.
It is expected that as the date gets closer, more and more players will come back to say goodbye. It is more common for people to keep playing until the last second. Whether that will also apply to Caldera and whether players or Activision will do something special to say goodbye to a beloved game, we will see.
