Warzone Caldera is shutting down – Activision kill the original battle royale

23 June 2023 , 10:00

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Caldera will soon be uninhabitable as Activision is shutting down the original Warzone later this year (Image: Activision)

Activision has put the final nail in the Warzone coffin and announced that the original version of the battle royale is shutting down this September.

Activision has announced the bad news that most Warzone 2 players were expecting, that the original (and far better) version of Warzone will be shutting down later this year on September 21, 2023. The first sign of this was alongside the launch of Warzone Season 4, which renamed the game from it's Warzone 2.0 moniker, instead just becoming 'Warzone'. The original Warzone retroactively became known as Warzone Caldera (named after the main map in that version of the game).

In a post on the Call of Duty Blog Activision announced the move, however, it doesn't go into to much detail as to why this happened, instead Activision opted to use the blog post as advertising space for the new version of Warzone touting " For those players who haven’t jumped over to the current Warzone activities, expect a vast amount of gameplay choices across three Battle Royale maps". Conveniently ignoring that the reason people are still playing Caldera in the first place is because of how disappointing Warzone 2 has been.

As for the in-game purchases you made during the original Warzone era, you'll still be able to use them in the respective games – Modern Warfare (2019), Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard – but there's no plans to bring that content over to Warzone 2, or offer refunds.

Left in the Cald

Obviously, splitting up your player base never tends to end well, and this had to happen at some point, but considering the negative reactions to Warzone 2 since that launched in November 2022 – that are only just beginning to improve – it feels a bit too soon. Either way this is a statement from Activision to move on or stop playing, and I imagine if even 60% of the existing Warzone Caldera player base move on to it's sequel it'll be a win for the company.

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Regardless, all we can do now is hope Warzone 2 (or is it just Warzone now?) continues to improve, because once September 21, 2023 arrives it's all we'll have. But at the very least, we can finally be rid of the gratuitous install size of the first Warzone – you have to focus on the little wins.

Scott McCrae