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Call of Duty League holds its first online event this weekend

Tyler Treese
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Activision Blizzard announced plans for the Call of Duty League to return on Friday, April 10, after getting derailed by the coronavirus, officially named COVID-19. The developer also detailed how the rest of the season will run without matches taking place in arenas locally.

As with previous events, matches will stream on Call of Duty League’s official YouTube channel. Envy Gaming’s Dallas Empire will host this weekend’s competition, which will span three days with a group stage on Friday. Saturday will see teams advance to the knockout stage of competitive play and the bracket will reach the semifinals. The tournament will conclude on Sunday, April 12, with championship matches as teams compete to become the inaugural Call of Duty League Champion.

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“I spent many years at the NFL, and saw firsthand how sports can lift the human spirit,” league commissioner Johanna Faries said. “No one wants to be in this situation, but we are, and we’re thankful that Call of Duty League can forge ahead and deliver live competition to fans when it’s probably needed most.”

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The Call of Duty League launched earlier this year and features 12 city-based teams. After a successful launch weekend, the league put on three events in London, Atlanta, and Los Angeles before temporarily suspending operations due to the pandemic. The Chicago Huntsmen will host the next online event on April 24-26, and Florida Mutineers (May 8-10) and the Seattle Surge (May 22-24) will host next. In June, the Minnesota Rokkr (June 5-7) and Paris Legion (June 19-21) will take over, and the regular season ends in July after events hosted by the New York Subliners (July 10-12), London Royal Ravens (July 17-19), and the Toronto Ultra (July 24-26).

So far this season, the Atlanta Faze and Chicago Huntsmen are tied with 90 points. The Dallas Empire (80) and Minnesota Rokkr (70) trail behind in the championship bracket, and wildcards Paris Legion (50), Florida Mutineers (50), London Royal Ravens (40), and OpTic Gaming Los Angeles (20) follow. Teams looking to improve into a wild card spot include the Seattle Surge (20), Toronto Ultra (10), Los Angeles Guerrillas (10), and New York Subliners (10).

Competitive Call of Duty play previously fell under the now-defunct Call of Duty World League. The former series was shut down after the 2019 season in favor of the current Call of Duty League, which looks to replicate Activision Blizzard’s success with Overwatch League.

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Tyler Treese
Tyler Treese
When not playing or writing about games, Tyler Treese serves as the Senior Editor at Wrestlezone. An experienced writer that…
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is official and it’s coming this November
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Modern Warfare III is Coming
It begins with some green soundwaves on-screen and a lot of radio chatter in the background. Then, the soundwaves turn from green to red before the perspective then pushes into them, creating a trippy red void. In there, we briefly see waveform images of a snake and Captain Price before he says, "Never bury your enemies alive" over the silhouette of a new character. This is believed to be Vladimir Makarov, the villain of the original Modern Warfare trilogy, who was teased in the post-credit scene for last year's campaign. After all of that, the title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is confirmed, as is the release date of November 10.

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The Vondel map in Call of Duty: Warzone is one of the best battlegrounds in the history of the battle royale genre. It's a small-scale, densely packed map with a wide variety of points of interest (POIs) that feel distinct. Modeled after European cities, Vondel is a feat of level design as it simultaneously feels fun and functional. It's a city that you can truly imagine as a real place, with a slew of different shops to enter, a canal, and even a water taxi service that moves throughout the map.

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