JoeWo’s Skepticism on Warzone 2’s Viability as an Esport and Comparison to CDL

JoeWo has little faith in the possibility that Warzone 2 will ever become a competitive title, but he believes that if it did, it would be better than the CDL.

The 2023 season saw the beginning of the Call of Duty League’s movement away from YouTube and onto Twitch, and the change was a huge success. With a high viewing count of over 300,000 between the mainstream and watch parties, the CDL Major 2 attracted more viewers than practically every other Call of Duty esports tournament that has ever taken place in the genre’s history.

As a result of the implementation of Ranked Play, competitive Call of Duty also gained a significant boost. Due to the meteoric rise in Modern Warfare 2 viewership numbers, Twitch saw an increase of more than 4.2 million total hours. According to CharlieINTEL, the viewership of MW2 has overtaken that of Warzone 2. JoeWo made a prediction that the WZ2 ranked mode would surpass the CDL in popularity if certain conditions were met. They are finally implementing the organized mode for WZ2.

JoeWo and Fifakill talk about the prospects for a competitive Warzone in the future

There is yet to be an official franchised league like the CDL for Call of Duty. Still, the game does hold an annual competition called the World Series of Warzone and occasional local area network competitions like the CODE Bowl. Fifakill, a player who competes professionally in Warzone 2, and JoeWo, who also competes professionally, discussed whether or not the battle royale mode could ever be a viable esport.

The Season 2 upgrade for Warzone 2 also included adding custom servers, making it possible for competitive players to organize wager tournaments. JoeWo is still determining if a competitive mode would be beneficial for the game, despite the fact that it could enable casual gamers to advance to higher levels of Play.

“After much consideration, I’ve concluded that this game will never, under any circumstances, be a truly competitive game.”

Fifakill joined in and said, “I think the most significant obstacle facing Warzone competitive is that they do not want it to detract from the CDL.” Joe was of the same opinion and argued, “I guarantee it would be considerably bigger.”

Moreover, Feef stated, “If Warzone had a league as the CDL did, then all of the CDL players would just play Warzone anyhow.” When the ranked mode finally gets out, it will be fascinating to see if Warzone 2 has a similar increase in the amount of interest in competitive Play.