Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat gets his first Warzone victory.
Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat gets his first Warzone victory.
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Call of Duty: Warzone — Why Activision’s battle royale has so much traction

If you have gamers in your household, chances are one is playing Call of Duty: Warzone. The new battle royale mode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer arrived on March 10 just in time for the lockdown in the United States and elsewhere. And it’s become my game of choice to take my mind off the pandemic.

In its first month, the free-to-play game was downloaded more than 50 million times, or the same number that Electronic Arts and Respawn saw with the debut of Apex Legends last year. In this case, social distancing and self-isolation contributed to Warzone’s success. It has come to the attention of a wider group, particularly with parents or other household members who discover their gamer is obsessed.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.