Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile deploys onto iPhone and iPad

Following after over a year of preorders and an early March scheduling update, the release of "Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile" on March 21 upgrades the Activision franchise on mobile devices.

A Battle Royale shooter, the game allows up to 120 players to exist in a single match, teaming up to take on other squads to become the last team or operator standing. After an initial drop-off and a parachute down to the ground, players must search for weapon upgrades and supplies, so they can better take on rivals who are hunting them down.

Like the PC and console versions of "Call of Duty: Warzone," the mobile edition brings with it a fan-favorite map, Verdansk, which combines wide-open spaces with urban areas. It's also joined by Rebirth Island, which offers an alternative big-map Battle Royale experience.

While players can be eliminated in the game, The Gulag provides a second chance, with a one-on-one fight against another fallen player potentially resulting in a redeployment to the battle.

Made for mobile gaming

Players benefit from cross-platform progression, as they can level up their weapons and advance their Battle Pass progress on the desktop and console versions at the same time. Likewise, unlocked operators, weapons, and other elements can transfer between platforms.

Friend lists and chat channels are also cross-platform, allowing players to keep in touch with their frequent battle buddies.

For mobile gameplay, the game has been rebuilt to allow touchscreen players to better get to grips with the title. Movement, aiming, and weapon handling have been optimized for mobile, as too the physics, animations, and sound. For console players, there's the option to connect a Bluetooth controller to their iPhone or iPad.

Returning players may not necessarily have the easiest ride to sign into accounts, as they do have to deal with the Call of Duty Account system.

In attempting to play the game on an iPad Pro, signing into the account proved troublesome, in part due to the inability to easily sign in with other linked accounts. Resetting the main account password was also a difficult affair, but that was the only real sticking point in playing the game.

On entering the game, players are asked questions about their gaming experience, whether they have played a mobile FPS title before, and if they want to download a higher-quality graphics package in one go, or have it streamed over time.

They are then sent straight into a brief tutorial, then into a practice match. After a second training match, players are given full access to all features of the game.

For the actual gameplay, the main movement controls are with the left thumb, complete with a sprint. The right thumb handles directionality, as well as crouching, jumping, selecting between weapons, and aiming.

One handy mechanic is the auto-fire feature, with guns firing at the aiming reticle when an enemy strays in front of it. This is handy when used with the limiting touchscreen interface, though manual firing is also available.

A sizable download

"Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile" is free to download and play, with a wide variety of in-app purchases available, and is rated for ages 17+ in the App Store. It is compatible with iPhone and iPad models running iOS 16.0 or iPadOS 16.0 and later.

The initial download is 3.93GB, but after the quick install and play on an 11-inch M2 iPad Pro, it swelled to take up 8.28GB of local storage at the time of publication.