The news that Call of Duty: Warzone will begin integrating with Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War in December raises a rather obvious question: will Warzone remain Warzone, or will the new Black Ops-Cold War paradigm?

This is not as simple a question as it appears. This is because most modern Call of Duty games are built on variants of Infinity Ward's engine; Modern Warfare and Warzone were built using IW 8.0, while Treyarch's Black Ops - Cold War developed using what Activision calls its own Black Ops - Cold War engine. The latter is a custom engine originally based on IW 3.0 and has been developed in parallel with the "Black Ops" series (and incorporates elements of IW 8.0).

The point is that while the differences between these paths may seem slight, they feel different in the hand because of the different software architecture underpinning the games. However, there is no need to worry that Warzone's style will change; in response to a user inquiry on Resetera about a possible engine shift, Activision's art lead and confirmed user Shuttermunster responded: " There is no engine shift in WZ.

It would seem so obvious that Warzone will probably not be rebuilt this quickly that it's hard to turn it on its head. In other words, Warzone will still feel like Warzone, and the only major question is how smoothly the Black Ops - Cold War equipment will fit into the experience.