Call of Duty: Warzone’s Iron Trials mode has gone down a storm with players, switching up the battle royale’s formula to create a more competitive experience. Many top streamers and Warzone tournament regulars have hailed Iron Trials as a potential saviour of the competitive scene, which beforehand had relied on either public lobby kill race formats or custom matches with hard to enforce rulesets.
The next step towards Iron Trials becoming the ultimate competitive Warzone mode has also just been taken, with an update from developer Raven Software adding the mode to private lobbies. What’s more, all squad sizes can be supported for Iron Trials private matches, with Solos, Duos, Trios, and Quads lobbies all being added.
The only caveat to Iron Trials’ addition to private lobbies is that, right now, full-size lobbies can’t be supported. Raven Software says that the maximum player count currently is 132, but it will increase the limit to the full 150 players at some point in the future.
Iron Trials’ private match addition is good news for those looking to host, compete, and watch competitive Warzone tournaments. Expect a lot of Iron Trials competitions in the coming weeks if the eagerness of streamer Thomas ‘Tommey’ Trewren is anything to go by.
Iron Trials in customs now? Looks like we’re running a tournament tomorrow night with @TBE_WZ.
Who’s about it?
— 100T Tommey (@Tommey) October 18, 2021
As well as adding Iron Trials to private matches, Raven Software also dished out a small buff to the recently added Grav assault rifle, decreasing its recoil to make it easier to control, and pushed out several bug fixes. Full patch notes for the update can be found here.
Iron Trials’ popularity and support from the developer spells exciting times ahead for competitive Warzone. With rumours of a Warzone ranked mode also floating around, the days of public lobby Warzone kill records or earnings lists being the criteria for ranking top players may soon be over.
It’s a shame it is all happening at the tail end of Verdansk’s life cycle, with the map soon to be replaced by the Warzone Pacific map shortly after Vanguard releases next month, but it’s better late than never – especially as players are starting to fine-tune their Iron Trials loadouts with the best Warzone guns.