When Will The Delayed Call Of Duty: Warzone Season 4 Actually Arrive Now?

Yesterday, Activision made the announcement that they would be delaying the next season of Call of Duty: Warzone, which was scheduled to begin today, Wednesday June 3. This is due to the protests in the US, and the statement cites the fact that it’s time for “those speaking up for justice and change to be heard.”

Or a game that looks like this:

When real life looks like this:

You get the idea. The heavy focus on militarized combat would just play so, so poorly in the current state of the US, where protesters are under siege from geared-up police using excessive force. So that creates a problem that other games may not have to deal with (Valorant went ahead with its launch yesterday, Destiny seems poised to launch its new season next week), though the glorification of military violence has long been something COD has struggled to thoughtfully address.

So, when does Call of Duty figure it has waited long enough to release Warzone season 4?

It’s left the game in a weird place, that’s for sure. There was a surge of double XP in the last few days of the season so players could finish their battle pass, which had a ticking clock attached to it. Now, there is no clock, no new date for the season because Activision genuinely does not know how long these protests will continue in the US, and if things are just going to keep getting worse, as they have been the last few nights in a row.

My guess is somewhere around two weeks.

Next week is likely to still be too soon, and things seem unlikely to deescalate much before then. But two weeks? That’s probably going to be “long enough” for them before the delay starts to mess up their calendar for the entire rest of the year. And even then, I would expect the marketing for the new season to be very light, focused on someone like say, Captain Price, who isn’t quite as foreboding as a bunch of blank-faced soldier types that we’re seeing on the streets everywhere right now. And I do wonder if it’s possible they might scramble to change a battle pass offering or two, because lord knows that debuting something like the D-Day POLICE cowboy skin from the season 3 battle pass right now would be a colossal, tone deaf screw up. So if there was some sort of riot gear or SWAT skin planned, I could see that being scrapped.

We will probably not hear anything about firm plans for season 4 before next week. And I wouldn’t expect to see the actual season until the week after. Stay tuned.

Source: forbes.com