Some Warzone Season 4 Features Dilute The Battle Royale Experience

Warzone Season 4 has finally arrived. The latest update brings a host of new game-play additions to Verdansk, but do they actually improve or hinder the Battle Royale experience?

First and foremost, if you want to check out all the new additions, changes and fixes coming to both Warzone and Modern Warfare in Season 4, you can do so by looking over the official patch notes here. For the purpose of this article, I’m only going to be dealing with some of the new game-play features coming to Warzone. Namely Jailbreak and Fire Sale.

Jailbreak

I’ll deal with Jailbreak first. Now I understand that Warzone has its own take on the Battle Royale genre. The addition of the Gulag, giving you a second chance to get back into the action is an excellent feature in my eyes. Winning a Gulag match is not easy and in most cases (lucky grenades aside) requires a bit of skill and nerve. It brings something different to the genre and for that reason it deserves its place in the game.

Also, the ability to buy a fallen teammate back is an acceptable concept. Your surviving teammates have to scrape enough money together, then get to a Buy Station without been gunned down and buy you back in. This requires patience and skill on your teams behalf, it also requires some forward thinking and planning. Both the Gulag and buying a teammate back add something a little different to the Battle Royale experience.

Jailbreak on the other hand is an extremely cheap way to get back to Verdansk. It requires nothing in terms of skill or endeavour. It literally requires you to sit on your ass and wait. In my opinion, Jailbreak is a completely stupid, and unnecessary feature that will only make winning an actual game even more frustrating and difficult.

Some people might argue that Jailbreak adds a bit of randomness to the whole affair. More players joining the action may give you an opportunity to rack up more kills but I think it’s a step in the wrong direction. Battle Royale games should be intense to play, just throwing players back into the game for no reason and with no merit makes the games I’ve encountered it in feel more like team-death match rather than Battle Royale.

Fire Sale

Next up is Fire Sale. Now this feature isn’t half as bad as Jailbreak but it still takes from the strategical nature of the Buy Stations and also the game as a whole. Especially the end game. When my squad and I usually rock up to a Buy Station we are generally forced to make choices because of the limited amount of cash we have. The priority, of course, would always be to buy back a fallen teammate. That alone might eat up most of your cash.

During a Fire Sale though, you can get your teammates back for free. So, if you’re the last person alive in your squad and you only have $5000 to your name, you can now get everyone back, buy a UAV or two, some Armor Plates, pick up a Self Revive Kit and more and probably still have some cash left over.

It’s nonsense, I know it only lasts for a minute but in that single minute you can go from having to sneak from building to building desperately looking for cash, to getting everyone back and completely restocking on essential items. Like Jailbreak, it feels like a cheap addition and again, it just takes from the intensity of the game.

Harsh?

Maybe some of you out there will think I’m being overly harsh on these new features. But, it’s because I love playing Warzone that I’m being so harsh. It already has a perfect blend of intensity and skill. In my opinion, Jailbreak and Fire Sale just don’t add anything to either of these factors, it takes from them.

But what do yo think? Do you like the Jailbreak and Fire Sale features? Would you like to see them appear in every Warzone match? What do you think of the Warzone Season 4 update in general? Please feel free to leave any thoughts you have in the comments below.

Image credit activision.com