Modern Warfare 3’s iteration of Warzone launched with two primary Resurgence environments, but that map pool is about to get a familiar face added in season two.
Fortune’s Keep is the star of the show for Warzone season two. The Resurgence map only had a four-month run at the end of CoD Vanguard‘s life cycle, so plenty of players missed the opportunity to dive in and explore the vibrant and unique island.
Raven Software is bringing Fortune’s Keep back for another go, with the added bonus of a dedicated Ranked Play mode for Resurgence. Here is everything you need to know about season 2.
Warzone season 2 patch notes
Season two brings back Fortune’s Keep, but an explosion tore apart the island and altered several POIs. The map is home to several new gameplay features, such as a limited-time contract that challenges squads to eliminate zombies, zombie power-ups, and a new squad wipe tracker.
Additionally, Warzone Ranked Resurgence is slated to launch soon after season two goes live and will exclusively be held on Fortune’s Keep.
Warzone Ranked Resurgence
For the first time in Warzone history, players can play Ranked Play in Resurgence. Warzone Ranked Resurgence uses the same system as WZ2’s Ranked Play with a few new tweaks.
The game mode only supports Trios and is exclusive to Fortune’s Keep. Several Shotguns, one-shot snipers, all launchers, snake shots, Dragons Breath, and more are all banned from Ranked Play. Players progress through seven Skill Divisions by earning Skill Rating (SR) before earning a place in the Top 250. Placement, kills, and assists all earn SR, and SR points are increased based on the amount of remaining teams.
Meanwhile, a deployment fee deducts SR at the start of each match, and players also lose SR each time they die during a round. At the end of each season, players get moved back three tiers and earn rewards based on their highest Skill Division.
Fortune’s Keep returns to Warzone
This version of Fortune’s Keep takes place decades after we last saw the map in Warzone Pacific. Activision explained that Konni Group moved underground to conduct experiments in a laboratory, but it went horribly wrong and resulted in an explosion that altered the entire map. Several POIs with broken or damaged buildings look different, but a few new map elements weren’t there before. Fortune’s Keep now has three draw bridges that can manually be controlled by players, and there is a valve in Winery that makes it possible for players to flood the building if they so wish.
The seismic events also led to zombies popping up around the map, and a new limited-time contract challenges squads to stop the outbreak from worsening.
Fortune’s Keep also features the Rogue Signal public event that puts teams against each other in a 90-second objective-based mission. For example, teams will be asked to get the most kills, deal the most damage, or open the most caches, with the winning team earning a random reward, which has a chance of being a Wonder Weapon from Modern Warfare Zombies.
Weapon balancing changes
Sledgehammer Games improved the responsiveness of aiming while using a mouse. ADS idle sway initiates shortly after aiming down sight rather than immediately, increases over a three-second period before reaching peak speed, and now consistently begins from the position of the player’s hip-fire crosshair rather than along the sway curve.
Weapon bullet trajectory is now aligned with the hipfire crosshair and the center of the player’s screen, rather than swaying by the direction of a weapon.
Several meta weapons saw nerfs. The RAM- had its mid and minimum damage values slightly reduced, the BAS-B had its max damage decreased, sprint to fire and aim down sight times increased, and hip-fire spread increased.
The MTZ-762 now does the same damage as it does in automatic. The HRM-9 had its maximum damage range reduced from 16.6 meters to 12.9. Finally, shotguns suffered nerfs across the board, as the Lockwood 680, Haymaker, Riveter, Bryson 890, KV Broadside, Lockwood 300, and the MX Guardian had their damage ranges or damage values decreased.
Lastly, the Pulemyot 762 JAK Annihilator Bullpup Kit does les damage and the MTZ Interceptor had its sprint to fire speed and ads sight times increased.
Quality of life changes
Players have complained about dying too fast in Warzone, so health rate per second increased to 50, up from 40, and the healing speed decreased from seven to six seconds. The update improves the ground loot weapon builds, added new weapons, and removed several semi-auto marksman rifles from the loot pool.
The season 2 update introduces a danger zone icon to indicate the area where a precision airstrike killstreak will land, and players will see a red outline around their minimap when they are in the area of a UAV.
For Resurgence players, fog will only appear in 8 percent of matches, compared to the previous 24 percent.
Audio improvements
Ascenders and parachutes had their audible distance and volume increased, making it easier to hear an incoming enemy. The update also removed environmental sounds that could be misconstrued as parachutes and reduced enemy parachute occlusion while firing a weapon.
Players will now get the proper warning when an enemy lands on them after using a redeploy drone.
Zombies power-ups
In the spirit of the zombie-themed season, Warzone is adding seven limited-time Zombie Power-Ups. Players can find them by opening caches or eliminating enemies, and the power-ups are marked with the same green glow found on power-ups in MWZ.
Here are all seven zombie power-ups coming to Warzone season 2.
- Double Points: 60-second duration. Doubles Plunder from ground loot and kills, and score events in Resurgence (that contribute to teammate respawn timers).
- Full Armor: Instant buff. Fully fills your active Armor slots on pickup.
- Max Ammo: Instant buff. Fully fills ammo for all your carried weapons on pickup.
- Fire Sale: 90-second duration. Reduces the price of all shop items for a small duration of time.
- Looting Spree: 60-second duration. Adds bonus items to caches, with a very high chance of a bonus Common item, and a small but significant chance of an additional Legendary item.
- Zarkour: 60-second duration. Increases movement speed by around 25 percent, with infinite Tactical Sprint and Reloading while Sprinting, and disables Fall Damage.
- Undead Sight: 45-second duration. Operators or AI enemies within the range of your vision are highlighted red and friendly squadmates are blue. Tracker footsteps are active.
Squad Wipe Streaks
Instead of chasing nuke streaks in Warzone season two, content creators, pro players, or high-skill competitors have a new method to showcase their talents. Squad Wipe Streaks tracks the number of back-to-back team eliminations within a set period of time.
After squad wiping the first team, teams have 90 seconds to take out the next team. The cycle will continue if players wipe out a team in the set amount of time. After each streak, a white flare shoots up from the last enemy, showing enemy teams your location for 10 seconds. Squad Wipe Streaks won’t be included in Ranked Play.
