The new Call of Duty battle pass for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 is upon us, and the way the non-linear progression functions has been detailed by the likes of Infinity Ward and Activision. While a battle pass is nothing new for the FPS games, this non-linear approach is, but it’s a confusing mess of a multiplayer game progression system, even if it sounds incredibly promising.
Before I dive into the absolutely unhinged mess of an explanation on Modern Warfare 2 season 1 battle pass the system, I do think the new Call of Duty battle pass is actually rather inventive. Gone are the days of straight lines in favour of topography, choosing your path, and maps! It’s a breath of fresh air that does allow for creativity and choice, instead of unlocking sprays and voice lines for ages that you’ll never use.
So, the Call of Duty battle pass is divided into 21 “combat sectors,” which could be filled with some of the best Modern Warfare 2 guns, with you starting on A1 and being able to pick and choose which connecting sections you want to complete as you go. A super secret ‘Victory Sector’ awaits when you’ve completed them all.
Each area has a HVT target, the main reward for completion, and a set of smaller rewards you’ll see once you hover over the section of the Call of Duty battle pass, which will likely be the same for season 2. You then use battle token tier skips to unlock each reward, which you apparently get “simply by playing the game,” with the reward criteria outside of that unspecified.
Okay, that’s all fine, but what happens after a season ends, and what do you do with your extra battle token tier skips? Well Halo Infinite does this in the best way possible, letting you select any old battle pass you want and working your way through it even after the season is over, and the Call of Duty battle pass does something similar, but not quite as freeing.
Any battle token tier skips you have left over at the end of a season will be automatically redeemed, and any extras will carry over to the next season. While this is a nice touch, does this mean the battle pass is gone forever, alongside some of the rewards, if you didn’t play enough? With no clear route to levelling outside of being told to ‘just play,’ this isn’t all that helpful.
You’ll also need to unlock all of a combat sector’s smaller rewards before the HVT is available, and once you have that any sector is available. I have a sneaking suspicion this will be easier in practice than how the Call of Duty battle pass has been written down, but all the battle token tier skip malarkey, and how exactly you earn them, still seems a bit up in the air.
It’s also worth noting that this battle pass works between Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2, but I’m not sure if the XP rewards are the same across a premium pad game and free one, as Warzone 2 players will get more level XP is they purchase MW2, so what does this mean for the battle pass?
Again, I do really like the new angle of player choice in the battle pass, you still need to earn enough to get what you want, but you don’t need to be entirely beholden to the route the developers set out for you. So I’m very interested to see how progression actually shakes out. You can find the full article, with all the extra rewards as a part of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 season 1, here.
If you want more help in Call of Duty, we’ve got a list of the best loadouts in Modern Warfare 2, alongside a look at how to level up fast in Modern Warfare 2 , and how to get double XP tokens in Modern Warfare 2 as well.
