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Right around the corner from its launch, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is primed to take mobile gaming to the next level. There’s one major catch, though, in that it will be directly competing with the highly successful CoD Mobile. The longstanding mobile experience is properly optimized for touch-screen play, while Warzone Mobile looks like a janky PC port. Unsurprisingly, the fanbase is concerned, and so am I.
Warzone Mobile Is Not Well Optimized
Warzone Mobile has been around for over a year now in beta, available only in a limited number of regions. It’s easy to see why it hasn’t launched in full yet, of course; the game is woefully optimized. Warzone Mobile is a direct port of PC and console version of the game, and translating its gameplay to mobile hardware makes for a technical challenge that I’m not entirely sure the development team can pull off.
Sure, mobile devices now boast tremendous performance, but it goes without saying that PCs and consoles are way ahead. Remember when, years ago, Epic Games made the same decision with Fortnite, bringing the main cross-platform version of the game to mobile devices? It was plagued by low FPS limits and graphical issues.
Warzone Mobile does at least offer more performance settings to run on mid-range devices. Regardless, the game looks poor on mid-range and low-end machines, and it turns your phone hotter than the surface of the sun if you play for even a moderate amount of time.
While there’s no doubt the very best phones will be able to run Warzone Mobile, given the game’s enormous following in lesser developed countries it seems as though technical performance is likely to shut out a huge number of potential players.
And even if CoD fans enamored with the idea of Warzone on their phones can put up with scolding phone temperatures, is there really a point to playing such low-fidelity battle royale on a clunky interface? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to build a bespoke version of the game that was less complex but ultimately boasted smoother performance? I’d take a simpler gameplay loop that felt custom-made for mobile over a hamstrung PC port any day.
The Gameplay Is Way Too Complicated For A Mobile Competitive Game
In Call of Duty: Mobile, we’ve got some core gameplay mechanics like running, sliding, plating in BR, and more. Now these make CoD Mobile a bit more difficult than other BR games like PUBG and Free Fire, while Warzone Mobile wants to add more to the party.
Parachute gliding, tactical running, slide cancelling, diving, and more are coming with Warzone Mobile. In other words, Warzone is a game designed for mouse keyboard and controller players, and WZM is trying to port the exact same experience on mobile devices. Remember that Apex Legends did the same thing before falling off the cliff and shutting down its servers.
You could say that having these additional gameplay mechanics woven into the experience makes for a higher skill-ceiling. But is anybody really playing CoD Warzone Mobile to sweat? And before you go and say it, I think palming off the notion of simplifying these mechanics with the old “git gud” adage is lazy. In fact, I think the whole notion of a PC port is lazy in the first place. Why is the dev team intent on jamming PC mechanics into a touch-screen game when it might have been better building bespoke ones for the ground up? Again, CoD WZM is going to end up feeling like shallow version of its true self, rather than standing tall as a unique spin-off.
Take CoD and PUBG Mobile as well balanced shooter and competitive mobile games for example. There are no stretched movement mechanics to deal with, and there are no extra field upgrades and killstreak buttons to blind the player’s sight on the screen. Feels basic, doesn’t it? That’s exactly why CS2 is still the top shooter with the most players, delivering a balanced experience without any of the complex creations that Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Apex Legends have to offer.
Controller Vs Touch Screen
As mentioned, Warzone‘s control schemes are built to be experienced with controllers or mouse and keyboard. Now imagine that you have to deal with all these commands on a touch screen, and fight your way against the players using external inputs; this is exactly what Warzone Mobile does!
Of course, there are pro players and streamers like iFerg that can annihilate a lobby on a touch screen no matter what input the opponents are using. But is that the case for the vast majority of mobile players? I don’t think so. This is where Call of Duty: Mobile beats its Warzone counterpart by delivering a fun experience that you can enjoy even if you’re using your thumbs only.
To chop all the story here, why would I play Warzone Mobile if I have to buy a $1000 phone, master playing the game with 6 fingers on the screen, reduce my phone’s battery and processor lifespan, and get half the quality that Warzone offers on PC, Xbox and PlayStation devices? Now don’t get me wrong with the reasoning here. Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile will be a fun experience after all. But in a long-term vision, these factors will come to bite WZM.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is currently available to play on Android and iOS devices.
