After over three years of waiting, ranked play is finally coming to Call of Duty’s battle royale.
The beta for Warzone 2’s ranked mode goes live with the Season Three Reloaded update tomorrow, May 10. And today, some of the developers who created the mode at Raven Software, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward spoke in a new video about what it means to take Warzone and infuse the battle royale mode with a competitive variant.
“With ranked play, a lot of it comes down to the high level vision of what we want to achieve with a ranked mode in Warzone, and a lot of that comes down to moving less from luck and more towards skill,” said Ted Timmins, senior creative director at Raven Software.
Related: MerK jokes he’s ‘ready’ for Warzone 2 ranked in horrendous lag clip
In short, this means the ranked version of Warzone 2 will limit some of what a normal public match throws at you, including public events like Jailbreaks. But there are some upcoming additions as well.
“We have a handful of systems to ensure that our matches are fair,” said Treyarch associate design director Lawrence Metten.
One of those systems is a guaranteed squad loadout, meaning that in every match, each squad will get its own loadout drop regardless of circumstances like money. But another new feature has been highly requested for regular Warzone, and it’s one that ranked BR would be difficult to exist without.
“We have a re-join feature on the horizon so that you’re setting the players up as successfully as they can be, and then it’s on that player,” Timmins said.
CoD fans got a teaser of the re-join feature during a Fifakill livestream last week, so confirmation of it being in development is welcome news for any player who’s lagged out of a game and been stuck with whatever placement they were unluckily handed.
Related: All skill divisions in Warzone 2 and how much SR you need for each
“On behalf of the development team, we can’t wait for Warzone ranked play to be coming out,” Metten said. “Super excited to see players jumping in, grinding out our skill divisions, who’s going to finish number one on the Top-250. Can’t wait to see those clips. It’s finally here.”
Warzone 2’s Season Three Reloaded update is available tomorrow, May 10.
