Activision is ending the original free-to-play battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone. Warzone Caldera, which was renamed last year, will close on September 21, 2023, allowing Activision to "focus on future Call of Duty content, including the current Warzone free-to-play experience."

The original Warzone stopped receiving updates last year after being replaced by its official sequel, Warzone 2. Activision insisted that the old Warzone, with its distinctive maps, weapons, and years' worth of premium cosmetics purchased by millions of people, would live on in Warzone Caldera. The last caveat is a particularly painful one: Warzone 2.0 hit the reset button on player progress, introducing new weapons and character skins and leaving old skins behind.

Warzone has always been somewhat intertwined with CoD mainline titles, with the official blog noting that "content purchased in Warzone Caldera" will also be available in Call of Duties Modern Warfare '19, Black Ops: Cold War, and Vanguard It notes that they will continue to be accessible, but that is cold comfort as the majority of Warzone players have purchased all of their tactical accessories and tools specifically for use in Warzone.

The announcement of its impending shutdown is all the more surprising given that the game is only three years old. Our standards may be low, given that live-service ambitions continue to kill reasonably successful games in record time, but we're not talking about Rumbleverse or Knockout City here. This is the same kind of situation that drove the original Overwatch 2 game off the hard drive and into the shadow realm last fall.

OG's Warzone was already on life support when Activision Blizzard moved on to the sequel game. Reduced to just one map and renamed "Warzone Caldera," it was a shadow of its former self, but it didn't have to be this way: as CoD streamer Futives noted, the first Call of Duty battle royale mode released in 2018, " Blackout" is still playable today; Kotaku recently published a report on the dedicated fan base that still supports the game.

Beyond Call of Duty, its tactical shooter nemesis Counter-Strike offers a fairly damning counterexample to multiplayer continuity.Counter-Strike 2 replaces the venerable Global Offensive but retains player progression and cosmetics. Meanwhile, Counter-Strikes 1.6, Source, and the odd single-player entry Condition Zero are still fully playable, thanks in part to the fact that players and communities can set up their own servers.

As of the Season 4 update of Warzone 2.0, Activision Blizzard has dropped "2.0" from its name, calling it simply the old "Warzone. Warzone 1? Warzone Caldera" Never heard of it! These flags (and premium real money skins) will be lost over time, like tears in the rain.