My Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 is a tank. What was once an impulse purchase to trade an old, slowly decaying S6 Lite away turned out to be arguably one of my better electronic purchases within the last five years (barring my new PC build, of course).
Seriously, I picked this thing up to play ‘Cytus II’ at a playable framerate, but what I ended up getting is a device that has become my defacto portable gaming device. I can run Fortnite at a full-fat 90 frames per second, the large screen makes it a perfect place to emulate some of my older consoles, being able to play the Netflix versions of older ‘Grand Theft Auto’ titles, Minecraft, among other things.
They run great, my battery life is solid—I can’t ask for anything more. Well there is one thing and that is more software. Personally I think mobile gaming is on the cusp of being something much greater than what it is right now: the top grossing being nothing more than a wasteland of casino games and expensive JPEG-pulling simulators.
That’s not to say there aren’t good games on the Play and App Stores (I am very fond of the WitchSpring games!), I also play those JPEG-sims, but recently I’ve put a lot of time into not only Fortnite but Activision’s latest mobile entry ‘Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile’.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is available on Android via Google Play and iOS.
I am extremely impressed with not only the performance but how well the many, many teams behind the game have ported the mechanics of current CoD to be as playable on a touchscreen as it is a controller.
But before I get started on telling you why Warzone Mobile is good, I have to get my bad feelings out first. I don’t like Call of Duty. I think the formula is incredibly stale, the gameplay and its pacing is epilepsy incarnate (but not in a fun way like ‘Titanfall’ or ‘Cube 2: Sauerbraten’).
Playing Warzone Mobile for the last few weeks really reinforced this thought process of mine as I parachuted down of what looked like a cut map from Bad Company 1, as my mates were Diablo’s Lillith, a Dobermann, Snoop Dog, you name it (though to be fair if I had those skins I’d wear ’em, too).
As far as I can tell from the last 15 years since I touched a console Call of Duty, all that was added was an extra sprint mode and a small slide that you can use to juke poor touchscreen players, as if they didn’t already have a major disadvantage against me.
With that outta the way, let me get to the good: Warzone Mobile is incredibly solid in its mechanics and moment-to-moment gameplay. Shooting feels great, there’s solid weapon variety, the movement options aren’t limited—it’s quite literally Call of Duty brought to mobile devices and dare I say better than the ‘Call of Duty: Mobile’ title that is currently run by Timi/Tencent.
Seriously it’s so good that I will keep this game installed, until something I like comes to replace it, because I want to have more pew pew options on my Android tablet. Gameloft really dropped the ball on this market, shame because those ‘Modern Combat’ games could’ve picked up quite a bit of the market had they actually done their due diligence.
Warzone Mobile is Warzone, and for the uninitiated it’s Call of Duty’s answer to the battle royale craze that sounded off during PUBG’s and Fortnite’s rise to fame. Some sixty to a hundred players are dropped en masse into an abandoned sectioned off Eastern Eurasian city, a discernable and audible British man essentially telling you to “have a good war”. You find weapons in crates that make sounds like they were sampled from Half-Life 2, shoot first and be the last survivor or die and get dragged into Fazbear’s Penitentiary where you duke it out with another dead player to win a second chance at Victory Royale™️ or get sent back to the main menu. Don’t forget that you’re actively being chased by a gas storm, too—no idea where its coming from, so my headcanon is that GladOS is throwing together this whole thing for fun, gassing up CoD players with neurotoxins.
And you know what? It plays great. As I mentioned, the mechanics of modern CoD are here and work great on a controller and as best as you can make it work on a touchscreen. Speaking of which, let’s talk about touchscreen play (and the players). When Warzone Mobile launched, outside of the game’s cardinal sin of throwing me right into the tutorial mode without letting me configure settings or plug in my MOGA, I have exclusively played Warzone with a controller and have won way more games than I should have ever deserved. Warzone Mobile has no form of input matching as far as I can tell and unless a touchscreen player gets the drop on you first, even a bot with a controller (AKA me) will wipe the floor with you.
Over the last couple of days I have noticed more and more controller players, thankfully. Either that or they’re playing on emulators with mouse and keyboard controls, in which case I feel very sorry for these touchscreen players. Seriously, I outright yanked back my playstyle just so someone could land shots on me. My plea to you, the reader, is to plug in a controller. You’ll thank me later.
OK, so you’ve had your fill of Warzone. Maybe after being OHKO’d for the fifth time in an open field is aggravating enough. Well the good news is that Warzone Mobile has other modes. Going to the menu, you have a Cash Extraction (Plunder) mode, Mosh Pit, and Rust 24/7. The former drops you back into the fray with three others, teaming up to extract as much cash as possible while denying others a similar glory. The latter are a variety of game modes, pitting six against six others in Rust and Shipment. In my time I was only ever cycled in-between those two so I’ve no idea if there are more. These last two modes were also a recent addition, coming just a couple of days ago.
Before I get into those two, let me briefly talk about the menu. It’s clunky, cannot be controlled with a controller, and if you forget to plug in a controller prior to dropping into a game you’ll need to leave the match to be able to reconnect it. But all the customisation of the main Warzone seems to be here, such as setting your Warzone and regular loadouts. Linking your Activision account to the game client will allow you to use your Modern Warfare III unlocks between Mobile and the console game, which is appreciated. And of course, being a mobile-focused client there is no crossplay with the console version—thankfully, the game does support crossplay between iOS and Android users. The game also launched mid-season of the current Battle Pass on console, only recently switching to the latest Season 3 Battle Pass—and the UX bugs related to that were annoying.
Outside the menu? Game’s been plenty stable for me. Mind, I am playing on a high end tablet, one capable of recording gameplay at sixty frames per second without impacting my gameplay. But when I played the game on a Galaxy S20+, I was extremely impressed with the performance. The framerate held up, though it dropped as I began recording footage on the thing. The downside to playing on a phone is the smaller screen estate—as far as I can tell, you cannot remove the touch screen button prompts in any way. This is fine on a tablet where you could ignore those inputs but on a small five inch phone? Total eyestrain.
There are graphics modes you can change to, but I always emphasise framerate over fidelity in my shooters. Even then, Warzone Mobile looks good for what is running on a fanless, battery powered ARM processor. Plus, there’s an FOV option and I can always appreciate that. Even better, the game’s smaller file size makes it a far more attractive option to keep around as opposed to the console client’s behemoth 200 plus gigabyte install. Assets stream in as they’re encountered, so even the initial install doesn’t take a decade.
Getting back to Mosh Pit and Rust, they’re your standard CoD fare but now in Mobile’s engine. Time-to-kill is mere seconds, killstreaks nuke the tiny maps you play on, so on and so forth. Players are dressed up in brightly coloured “cool army guy” outfits making it nice ‘n easy to gore them faster than they can spawn. It’s not my kinda game, but if you want Call of Duty on the go it’s right here and it’s free.
Speaking of free, let’s be real: it’s a phone game and it’s free-to-play, so naturally there’s going to be your monetisation. Warzone Mobile sports a Battle Pass, purchasable outfits, and “The Keep” which is a single pull gacha system. You’ll pull with the paid “CoD Points” currency, each pull increasing in value until the box is empty or you have what you want. Honestly? I’ll take it. It’s a better system than infinitely pulling and getting nothing before realising you’re some nine hundred dollars deep pulling for a JPEG. And of course, none of these unlocks are pay-to-win, as in there is no advantage to paying besides wanting to dress up as King Kong.
There are also weapon unlocks for your loadouts. Remember how I said Modern Warfare III loadouts are linked to Mobile? Here you can unlock those weapons and vice versa, a kind of cross-progression. The game regularly runs events too, allowing you to get free customisations for your meatbag. I liked the Starter Kit skin the store sold for a dollar so I grabbed that, but personally I’m not too big of a fan of how these skins look.
Sorry Activision, but I think Fortnite does that better. Overwatch, too, naturally.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is a solid free shooter. But as a mobile game? It’s great. A lack of solid shooters with controller support help its case, but the available content alongside connections to the console game, the availability of settings and control customisations, full party support with voice chat and crossplay between iOS and Android devices—Warzone Mobile is a small miracle on these mobile platforms.
I’ll keep it installed until Halo gets its inevitable Android and iOS port. Or someone clones it (and does a good job of it. Right, Gameloft?).
*This Impressions article was updated on the 7th of May, 2024 to correct that ‘Call of Duty: Mobile’ is developed by Timi/Tencent, not NetEase as first penned.
