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Everything you need to know about Call of Duty: Warzone's launch

Here's when you can hop into Call of Duty: Warzone, Activision's new free-to-play battle royale game.

Activision and Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Warzone, a free-to-play battle royale game set within the Call of Duty series, goes live on March 10. But when exactly can players skydive into the game? How large is the download size across different consoles?

Here's everything you need to know about the launch of Call of Duty: Warzone:

Call of Duty: Warzone is a 150-person battle royale experience that's somewhat similar to Blackout, the franchise's previous battle royale experience included with Black Ops 4. After a month of leaks and rumors, Activision released a launch trailer Monday (included below) and confirmed the Tuesday launch with a countdown timer included in the Classified in-game menu tab confirming the launch times.

Actual start times and download size for Warzone vary depending on whether or not you own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare already, and these start times apply to every platform that Call of Duty: Warzone will be available for (that's PC, PS4, and Xbox One). It's worth noting that Warzone also supports crossplay, which means that regardless of platform and interface, everyone will be playing in matches together in groups of two or three players or solo.

When is the Call of Duty: Warzone launch time?

For anyone who already owns Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, they can already find the Warzone mode in the main menu's Classified tab as part of a limited early access period. The download for it went live at 11 a.m. Eastern on March 10 and Modern Warfare gamers can already play once the download is complete.

Those who don't own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare have to download a standalone free-to-play Warzone game that'll go live later in the day at 3 p.m. Eastern on March 10, and there's seemingly no preload for that version of the game.

What are the Call of Duty: Warzone download sizes?

A blog post from Activision claims that the Modern Warfare update for Warzone will be anywhere between 18 and 22 GB depending on the platform, and that'll be on top of the already gargantuan file size for the base game.

For anyone downloading the full standalone version of Warzone for free, the file sizes will be anywhere between 83 and 101 GB. That huge size on par with the full version of Modern Warfare, likely because the games share a base and many overlapping assets.

As you are waiting for Call of Duty: Warzone to finish downloading, it shouldn't keep you completely hanging. If at least 20 GB of the game is installed, players should be able to hop into offline bot matches in Modern Warfare's short but thrilling Gunfight mode. It's a hint at an interesting revival mechanic within Warzone. "Upon your first elimination, you will be taken as a 'Prisoner of Warzone' and thrown into the Gulag," reads Activision's blog post for the launch. "When your turn is up, you’ll enter the Gulag and face-off against a single opponent in a 1v1 to earn the ultimate reward — redeployment. Win in the Gulag and earn redeployment back into Verdansk." The match type for this activity is similar to Gunfight, but the offline bot versions should make for helpful practice before the entirety of the new battle royale game is downloaded for players.

Call of Duty: Warzone will be available March 10 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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