Solo queuers rejoice! Call of Duty: Warzone update brings back solos and Verdansk (again)

Call of Duty: Warzone's Season 2 Reloaded update ushered in Black Ops Royale, a brand-new battle royale experience inspired by the original Blackout mode originally released during the Black Ops 4 era. Player feedback on Black Ops Royale has been mostly positive, but one segment of the community was dissatisfied with the launch: solo queues.

As of today, solo queues have returned to Call of Duty: Warzone and are available for the first time in the Black Ops Royale mode. Additionally, the update also brought Verdansk back online for players who prefer the standard battle royale experience over the Blackout-inspired mode. Battle Royale Casual Quads — a mode that introduces bots into the player mix on Verdansk — has also returned.

Call of Duty development teams at Treyarch and Raven Software made the call to launch the Black Ops Royale mode with 4-player teams, requiring everybody to drop into the new mode at launch with a quad squad. Those unable to group together enough friends had the option to either drop into their matches at a disadvantage due to a smaller squad size or allow squad fill to pair them up with random players to finish out the team.

The Call of Duty team had also made the decision to remove other modes from Call of Duty: Warzone during the initial launch period, including the Standard Battle Royale experience on Verdansk, casual battle royale modes, and Resurgence on Rebirth Island and Haven's Hollow.

The development team remained steadfast that the decision to limit available modes and squad sizes for Black Ops Royale was necessary for valuable gameplay and player behavior information to be collected. The data from the initial launch will be used alongside player feedback to further adjust and shape the Black Ops Royale experience moving forward.

Raven Software has also warned solo players that because Black Ops Royale was designed with quads in mind, there may be some fine tuning need for the mode to make it more compatible with solo gameplay.

Along with the introduction of Solo queues for Black Ops Royale, the Standard Battle Royale mode set on Verdansk has returned to Warzone after being disabled during Black Ops Royale's launch window.

Warzone is traditionally limited to just one active "big map" at a time to avoid fracturing the player base and keep healthy player counts for faster matchmaking. Players can now drop in on Verdansk in Standard Battle Royale or Avalon on Black Ops Royale.

Players also have a large variety of gameplay modes and maps to choose from with this latest update. The Resurgence playlist will rotate on a timer between Rebirth Island and Haven's Hollow with queues for solos, duos, and quads.

Resurgence Casual Quads is also live on a timer between Rebirth and Haven's Hollow. A limited-time Extreme Resurgence mode is also active with 100 players on a small map for quick 11-minute matches, but it is quads-only on Haven's Hollow.

Battle Royale playlists are limited to Casual Quads or standard Quads on Verdansk. 3-person squads who don't want to pick up a random only have Ranked Resurgence as an option for this week.

Raven Software has also published a blog post with patch notes for bug fixes across Call of Duty: Warzone. Among those fixes are:

• Increased audio radius for redeploy towers in Black Ops Royale.
• Point turret health reduced from 60-45.
• Stim shot movement bonus reduced from 8-6%, duration increased from 3 seconds to 4.
• Concussion grenade stun duration increased from 1.15 seconds to 1.2 seconds.
• Reactive armor EMP effect removed in Resurgence due to the removal of the Cold-Blooded perk.
• Death Machine adjusted to deal 2-5% vehicle health damage per bullet, depending on vehicle class.
• Smoke Screen adjusted in Resurgence so that it now deploys in a line parallel to player direction, initial impact now occurs at targeted location, and then continues forward for 5 impacts. Deployment delay reduced from 5.25 to 2.5 seconds.
• Trauma kit overhealth is now visible to teammates in Black Ops Royale.
• Armor Damage rarity color has been adjusted in BOR.
• An indicator is now displayed for players who fire at an enemy vehicle occupied by a player using Engineer.
• Event rewards are now properly displayed in the menu.
• Operator challenges now track properly.
• Map geometry has been fixed to stop player exploits.
• Deadeye Drone now displays enemy markers on the HUD.
• Black Ops Royale matches now count toward the Ranked Play unlock requirement.

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