Is Warzone shutting down? Possibilities explored

Modified Mar 04, 2025 13:49 GMT

Multiple Operators on top of a building in Warzone — Exploring the possibilities of Warzone shutting down (Image via Activision)

Simply put, no, Warzone isn't shutting down. At least not yet. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Warzone isn't performing well at the moment. Since Black Ops 6 was integrated with the battle royale title, it has been on a downhill journey. Due to improper integration and poor decisions by developers, it has become unplayable for many players. Rampant cheating, server stability issues, bugs, and more have made the overall experience quite poor for players.

While these have caused the game to lose a vast majority of its player base, it's far from being dead. But things aren't so straightforward, at least according to a recent rumor.

Read below to learn more about this rumor and why — although the developers have not discussed shutting down Warzone — it might still happen.

Origin of the rumors of Warzone shutting down explored

The origin of the rumors about Warzone shutting down can be traced back to a report by @TheGhostOfHope on X. According to the report, Call of Duty will cancel WZ3 if Verdansk fails to maintain the current player count or bring back players to the game.

This is certainly a huge claim and while it has not been confirmed by developers, GhostofHope has proven to be correct in the past with a clean track record so far.

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Also read: Call of Duty might scrap WZ3 in 2026 if Verdansk fails this year

This led to many fans believing that the current title might be shut down. But there's a catch. Many players in the community claim that the current version of the game is Warzone 3. Hence, it led them to believe that the battle royale title will shut down if Verdansk fails.

However, this is not true and several insiders have confirmed that WZ is still in version 2 and not 3.

Coming back to the rumor, it claims that if Verdansk — one of the most anticipated maps in the series to date — fails, then Call of Duty will cancel Warzone 3, which is reported to arrive with COD 2026.

This means that the battle royale won't receive a new iteration with upgrades, and players will be stuck with the current-gen game.

However, this also means that the game might eventually stop receiving updates, leading to its shutdown if Verdansk doesn't meet expectations.

Similar things had happened with the original game, Warzone Caldera, which was shut down in 2023 after the release of WZ2. But back then, players had the option to play an upgraded version of the battle royale title. This might not be a possibility if the current-gen WZ shuts down and Verdansk fails to deliver results for the COD team.

Hence, if we are to trust GhostofHope's report, the life of a fan-favorite shooter is now riding on the success of Verdansk, which will arrive with the Season 3 update.

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Edited by Ripunjay Gaba