The new Call of Duty battle royale mode Warzone has just been released, and in its first hour it’s already dominated Twitch, gathering a massive 357,000 viewers exactly one hour after dropping.
The latest entry into the battle royale genre launched globally today at 8:00 PDT (11:00 EDT / 15:00 GMT) and despite it being in the middle of work and school hours it’s had no trouble finding players and viewers. Twitch lit up with streamers from around the world wanting to get their hands on the new mode, creating an impressive spike that is currently beating its numbers on Twitch from its launch day on October 25.
Among the streamers getting immediately involved were Tim ‘TimTheTatman’ Betar, who had the most viewers at over 69,000 at time of writing, Guy ‘Dr Disrespect’ Beahm, and Tyler ‘TeePee’ Polchow, with a whole array of others playing to thousands as everyone wants to get a look at the many new features coming to Warzone that could shake up the battle royale genre.
Two variations are available in Warzone: the standard battle royale, this time with 150 players as teams need to be three people, and Plunder, involving teams scrambling to gather one million dollars before their opponents.
First game of CoD Warzone with @CouRageJD was INSANE pic.twitter.com/XwxLuWD10h
— timthetatman (@timthetatman) March 10, 2020
Though mostly a standard winner-takes-all skirmish, one key feature here are the Loadout Drops. Before entering, players design up-to 10 custom classes that include armor, weapons and more, and upon finding one of these drops, then become equipped with these supplies. They take longer to open than standard loot, so have a greater risk attached, which should provide some high drama when that player-count starts to drop.
With the evening audience yet to settle down for some Warzone action and numbers continuing to climb from its impressive first hour, Modern Warfare could be on course to set some records as the day goes on.