Modern Warfare 2020 – Seasons and Packs

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Season 4 and what’s next in Season 5?

ModernWarfare 2019 had a pretty successful launch and has continued to grow from strength to strength; despite its flaws (cough servers, cough hackers), people still play it consistently.

So let’s look at a few of its accolades since launch:

• Activision’s best-selling PC title of Call of Duty
• Biggest digital Pre-order for PC so far
• Most digital copies sold through PS4 store in 3 days
• Biggest Premium selling game of 2019
• Has totalled more hours played than any Call of Duty game in six years
• 500m multiplayer hours and 300m multiplayer matches (and that was pre-Christmas 2019)
• It’s also now made more than $1billion 

So it’s no surprise that there are YouTubers, Discord channels, Reddit links and Twitch streams dedicated to this game, but why is it such a success?

Whatever the magic formula, (something I lack; otherwise I’d possibly be just as wealthy), Activision and Infinity Ward have a magic touch that keeps on giving.

So let’s recap Warzone Season 4 and look ahead.

Season 4

With the season finale drawing upon us, and the speculations and great marketing from their publicity team, what did Season 4 bring?

Well, the legendary Captain Price made his debut in Warzone and MultiPlayer! The titler operator of the Season along with some great new weapons, the Rytec AMR, CR-56, Kali-Sticks and the Fennec, Scrapyard returned for MP matches, and then Cheshire Park not so long ago. 

Gaz made his debut in a purchasable pack, adding more characters from Task Force 141, is this a sign of things to come? Plus a new hunter/tracker called Roze (purchase). Roze is a Jackal’s operator; these are a Private Military Company founded by Viktor “Zane” Metiko and his brother Abraham, they’re a pan-African revolutionary group, financed by the black market. Naturally, these are designated a “Terrorist group”.

On top of that we’ve had countless new game modes, both in Warzone and outside of that; 

Warzone rumble made a controversial appearance (mainly sniper glint central), and Juggernaut Royale was short-lived, if not fun-filled.

So the continued content and updates are well made and to continue supporting the experience moving forward. I mean you wouldn’t let a golden chicken go stale right?

• 

• 

Each Season I get the Battle Pass, and this is because, after the first one, the rest are free. You can earn enough COD Points on pass completion, to buy the next one. However, one thing that draws a lot of criticism is the operator packs and skins. The pack prices differ wildly from 600 coins, for a skin or emblem, to 2400 coins for an operator, however recently, the game has seen the introduction of additional $/£ valued items, that have no in-game currency option.

The latest Warzone Starter Pack (Season 4?) is £5, now, I get they need to make money, but why are they starting to split differences between cod points and real cash? 

I’m sure many people have picked this up, but does it change how we perceive in-app purchases when they are shown in real value and not a digital currency?

Time to Buy!

So all in the name of science and education, I got the three new operators this Season;

Nikto is my favourite skin, he looks terrifying in his Bloodletter kit, and his truck skin looks menacing, all in black with a skull along the side.

Gaz brings a bit of UK flair to the setup with his Union Jack but would be great with a covert skin of some form, bit disappointed with this one.

Roze brings her anti-US scary self to the fray, with an excellent weapon that causes dismemberment, yup, she literally blows the pieces of the enemy off.

Now, are they overpriced? Sure they are, at £16-20 a skin (currency dependant), they offer no exclusive bonuses to your win/loss ratio. Yet some of them offer things you can’t unlock by just playing, like the tracer packs, or ammunition effects. 

Also, If you’re only playing Warzone and don’t have the main game to get those unlocks then I can see the desire to skip the grind (Ram7, Akimbo weapons, Bruen mk9) and run with some weaponry that would potentially take you months to unlock. The Bruen MK9 requires you to get three kills when an enemy is near smoke, 15 times using an LMG! I can’t imagine how hard that would be in just Warzone.

So why buy them? Well if you’ve got the game for free, its a way of supporting the Devs, it keeps the servers running, and it possibly makes you feel like a badass. 

If the packs were more strategically priced, maybe five to ten pounds/dollars maximum, they might have more people buying them?

Either way, it’s been another successful season, and now we move into hopefully a new age for Warzone.

Season 5

If you’ve been following social media, you may have noticed that three rooks have been shipped in a very “black ops” style, from Shadow Company.

JackFrags, Nickmercs, TeeP all received the same package but with three different USB sticks worth of videos, if you want to check those out in full, head over to JackFrags video for that update.

Now you’ve seen those videos lets talk about what we think is going to happen.

For those that remember, Shadow Company is an elite group of PMCs under the direct command of General Shepherd (yes that guy), they also appear in MW2 as a Spec Ops mission, and its main prerogative is to betray TF141.

So the first Video is inside a train, and observant fans have noted the tracks running around a section of the map, does this mean we’re getting a loot train? A new game mode to hold the train? Or just a high-octane battle point to jump on and off. Whatever happens, I can imagine the ticket inspector taking the day off.

The second and third videos are inside the Stadium, and earlier last month there was a glitch where you could get inside the Stadium, however, now the teaser seems to foreshadow an explosion and a helicopter landing.

Does this mean the Stadium will open up at the start of each round with an explosion? Is this a mid-game event that will trigger like “jail-break” or even is this an intro video for Season 5 that will effectively have the Stadium always burning for the next Season?

Whatever happens, I can imagine Shadow Company have something to do with it. Hopefully, they become either a playable faction or an AI-controlled faction that challenges you on the map? Either way, the trouble in Verdansk is something to do with them.

Final Thoughts

• Will Shadow Company bring back some much-needed love for Spec Ops missions with specific loot only available there? 
• What happened to the bunkers, and why are they now missing their numbers?
• What happened to the Nukes and the leaks to a Cold War?
• Is Soap the Season 5 title character to compliment TF141

Either way, we find out together on August 5th 2020.