Warzone Mobile Is an Unoptimized Mess at Release, But Is It Doomed?

After a year in beta and limited regional releases, the highly-awaited COD Warzone Mobile dropped globally on March 21. I eagerly downloaded it, brimming with both anticipation and skepticism. As a massive fan of the original Warzone’s top-of-the-line graphics and fast-paced gameplay, I wondered how it would translate to a mobile experience. Suffice it to say that my first impressions of Warzone Mobile were severely disappointing.

As someone who has been playing Call of Duty since the first game, I had high hopes for Warzone Mobile as CoD Mobile had left me wanting more. But I couldn’t believe that the game would come out in such a state after numerous delays and extensive testing.

So after playing the game for a week, I’ve decided to share my first impressions of Warzone Mobile and outline the issues I experienced along with the feedback from the community.

Abysmal Graphics and Lack of Details

The game has a base file size of 1.5 GB, but it requires you to download an additional 5 GB of in-game assets before your first match. When you jump into the game, you’ll soon realize that the visual quality doesn’t quite match the hefty download size.

Textures appear low-resolution and resemble oil paintings doodled across your $1,000 iOS or Android smartphone display.

No matter where you look, the view is blurry and pixelated with some details taking a while to load in. 3D objects lack a level of definition, enemy models look like shapeless blobs, and textures keep popping in and out. This kind of inconsistency is jarring considering the publisher’s prior promises of a AAA gaming experience.

This is because rather than downloading all of the visual assets first, the game streams them in the background during gameplay. This might explain the initial blurry textures and lack of detail. So, the graphics quality could improve after your fourth or fifth match, depending on your internet speed.

My question is, why won’t it let you download all of the high-resolution files beforehand like CoD Mobile? There isn’t even an option to turn off asset streaming, so you will have to suffer through your first few games if you want the graphics to improve.

Warzone Mobile is Riddled with Bugs

To add to the frustration, the game is riddled with bugs and I (and my colleagues) encountered some myself. For instance, my HUD won’t show the gun mode and weapon textures won’t load at the start.

Sometimes, I’ll be left with a black void in my hands. Other players have reported encountering visual glitches where some players’ bodies fail to load, leaving only floating heads visible. See all the visual glitches for yourself:

That is not all, though. I also encountered glitches when interacting with certain objects, occasional unresponsive controls, and sometimes the game skips animations when performing takedowns on enemies. Your character may randomly start asserting dominance over other players as it gets stuck in a T-pose, as shared by numerous players online.

Poor Optimization Across Different Devices

We knew from the get-go that the game would be demanding, for older hardware. But what we got even gave newer smartphones a run for their money. Both iPhones and high-end Android devices struggled to maintain a consistent 60FPS.

I played the game on iQOO Neo 9 Pro with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and for the most part, I got good FPS, but with occasional frame rate drops.

People reported that their flagship phones from a couple of years ago couldn’t reach the 60 FPS mark. Moreover, we were only able to apply Mid and High graphic settings while Low and Minimum options were unavailable. For some odd reason, only the iPhone 15 Pro Max and some iPads support Peak graphic settings, which requires an additional 1.5 GB download.

Another significant problem is heating as just a few minutes into this unoptimized game can cause the best of devices to overheat. The iQOO device I used has good internal cooling, yet it became noticeably warm after just a single match. Online reports suggested that some devices reach temperatures as high as 49 degrees Celsius, potentially leading to crashes. So, we don’t recommend playing without a cooling fan at this time.

Connectivity Issues and High Ping

With the game releasing across the globe, you might think they would have fixed connectivity issues. But throughout my time in Warzone Mobile, playing from India, the ping consistently hovered above 100ms.

As a result, I lost multiple gunfights because my gunshots didn’t register and the lag sometimes was crazy. It reminded me of the days when I used to play the original MW3 over a 2G mobile hotspot.

As mentioned before, the game kicked me out of matches right after it started and wouldn’t let me re-join the previous session. I also got randomly disconnected while in the lobby and had to sign in again. I noticed that you can only stay signed in on one device, which is odd as some people (like me) might want to have the game installed on multiple devices.

My Final Thoughts on Warzone Mobile’s Release

I would say Warzone Mobile isn’t entirely without merit. The game does offer a proper Call of Duty gameplay experience, which I have become accustomed to, on mobile phones. I appreciate the fast-paced movement, recoil-rich gunplay, improved visuals (when they don’t bug out), and integration of cross-progression.

Despite the current issues, there’s potential for Warzone Mobile to improve. In fact as of writing this article, Warzone Mobile posted on X (formerly Twitter) that they have acknowledged these graphics issues and will be rolling out an update to fix them soon.

But it still boggles my mind that a game that has been in beta testing in several regions for so long still has glaring graphics and optimization issues. For now, I will resort to playing Warzone on my PlayStation 5, but I’ll revisit this game at a later date; once the promised patches roll out.

Because the game may have an appalling response and be unoptimized at launch, I believe it’s not doomed and is going to see many players flock in with each new update or seasonal patch. How is your experience with the game? What smartphone are you playing it on? Tell us in the comments section.