I’ve been familiar with the concept of the Battle Pass ever since Fortnite introduced it a few years ago, but I’ve never actually paid to participate in one. I’ve grabbed some of the free rewards in titles like Rocket League, and I’ve enjoyed the non-premium season structure in NBA 2K21 – but in order to glean a better understanding of the whole business model, I decided to plump up for the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Battle Pass over the Christmas break.
To be honest, if I wasn’t a games writer, I probably wouldn’t have invested: this was as much about educating myself as it was entertainment. But I haven’t played a Call of Duty game since Infinite Warfare, so I’m not as burned out on the six-versus-six format as Assistant Editor Liam Croft was in his review, and I have to say I liked the look of a lot of the rewards on offer. I decided that, while I’m playing the game for at least a couple of matches every day, I’d give it a go.
Now if you never play multiplayer and don’t know what a Battle Pass is, indulge me for a paragraph while I explain. Effectively, it’s a time limited tier of content unlocks. In the case of Black Ops Cold War, you get emblems (or avatars), character skins, weapon blueprints, boosters, and various other cosmetic trinkets. The tiers are unified across the aforementioned competitive shooter and Battle Royale title Call of Duty: Warzone, and any XP you earn in either title contributes to your progress.
There are a bunch of free tiers, which to Activision’s credit generally pertain to the weapons, so you’re mostly unlocking cosmetic things. It must be said that while many of these are generally quite pointless, they are cool: I love all of the animated avatars and other nonsense that you see in Call of Duty, and I actively seek it. If you’re not interested in playing dress-up with your soldier, then you can safely ignore it all.
The Battle Pass cost me 1,000 CoD Points for the basic version – there’s also a more premium option which includes 25 tier skips – but in real-money I had to pay approximately £10, which didn’t seem outrageous to me. Here’s the thing, unlike in the PlayStation 3 era, Call of Duty no longer charges for DLC packs, so everyone has access to all of the maps. When you consider that the old map packs cost roughly the same as the Battle Pass, I actually think this is a superior model because it’s optional.
So, having put in about 10 hours with the Battle Pass – I’m still on Tier 22 out of a total 100, but more on that later – I figured I’d share my thoughts on the experience. Let’s start with the pros:
- Now that Call of Duty is completely cross-platform, the unification of the playerbase is a big deal. Obviously, post-release support costs Activision money and it needs to have a revenue stream to support that. I actually think the Battle Pass, which is completely optional and even includes a bunch of complimentary items, is a fair way of monetising the game over time.
- Of the 100 tiers, around 13 reward you with 100 CoD Points. This means that, if you complete the entire Battle Pass, you’ll actually end up with enough in-game currency to buy the next one without having to spend real money. Obviously there’s a degree of grinding involved here, but it seems like a nice way of rewarding the game’s most hardcore fans.
- The constant sense of progression taps into a primal instinct that’s very satisfying. Just watching the Battle Pass progress, unlocking goodies along the way, is very gratifying. We’re all familiar with the concept of unlocking items in games, but this feels like that on steroids. If you pay for the premium version, you’re inundated with stuff every session.
- The most coveted rewards, like the Stitch character skin, are awarded immediately upon purchasing the Battle Pass. This means you get instant access to them and can enjoy them right off the bat. It’s also fun, as you can use the new character to then unlock all of the other stuff, like the weapons and cosmetics.
However, having now financially invested in the Battle Pass, I do have a few gripes about how the model works – and how it’s implemented in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone specifically:
- It’s honestly quite stressful. There are 100 tiers available as part of the Battle Pass but there’s a time limit attached to them, and despite playing the game a reasonable amount, I’m not even a quarter of the way through yet. That means I’ll probably need to play about 40 hours or so to unlock the rest, and because I’ve paid for it I feel compelled to get it all otherwise I’m not technically getting the full value of my investment. It’s kind of like when you pay for a gym membership but you don’t feel like working out; there’s this niggling sense that you have to go because you’re paying for the privilege. Now, you can spend CoD Points to skip tiers, but obviously this may result in additional monetary investment – although I’m informed the publisher has discounted these towards the end of each season before.
- I love the way Black Ops Cold War and Warzone unify the Battle Pass, because sometimes I feel like traditional Call of Duty and other times I want to experience Battle Royale. But the progress is not consistent across the two titles. I can play mediocre in a six-versus-six Team Deathmatch game and jump almost an entire tier; meanwhile, coming second in a lengthy Battle Royale match barely moves the Battle Pass a pixel. As such, I feel more compelled to play Black Ops Cold War. Considering Warzone is free, I’m beginning to assume this is intentional.
- Honestly, some of the rewards are really superfluous, and it’s going to come down to taste whether you actually want them or not. Don’t get me wrong, the emblems are much better than the ones you unlock in FIFA 21, where they give you a crappy picture of a badger for no particular reason. But yeah, not every tier is an absolute winner, although I do enjoy the watches and little dangly bits you can attach to your guns.
All in all, I’d say I’m quite enjoying the Battle Pass, and while I was trying to educate myself by buying it, I’ve gotten quite a bit of entertainment out of it. I think the most important part about this is that it allows Activision to monetise the game – and, regardless of what you think, that is important in an era of weekly updates – without leaving anyone out. I think it’s cool that all of the maps and core features are available to everyone in a completely cross-platform (and cross-game, in this case) environment. It’s all optional, and honestly that’s the best way to handle it.
I think I just need to get over the fact that, realistically, I might not unlock everything and that’s okay. To be honest, even at Tier 22 (and I’ll end up a lot higher than this once the season ends) I feel like I’ve more or less gotten my money’s worth. And, y’know what, I’ll probably buy the next Battle Pass as well. So I’m happy and I’m glad I coughed up in the end; I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
Have you ever paid for a Battle Pass? How far did you get with it, and were you happy with the value overall? What do you think about this business model? Let us know in the comments section below.
Comments 41
Only ever played the Fortnite Battle passes. The current pass isn’t as good as the last one. The unlock-able characters aren’t as good and there are no good bosses. Last season had Iron Man, Wolverine & Dr Doom. This season has Mandalorian... (and his special weapons aren’t very good). Just feels like a meh season overall.
I’ve only ever bought one once, for one of Destiny 2’s seasons. The game was free to play so I thought I might as well. I liked that it incentivised me to play the game more but it was ultimately fluff I was paying for. It’s the ones like Avengers that do my head in, when the only cosmetics are tied behind separate passes for each character. Yuck.
Nice article, Sammy!
My personal thought on Battle Passes is a little different. I guess I'm somewhat of a contrarian, because if a game is actively encouraging me to play it, all of the sudden I don't want to anymore. Hard to explain, but it feels, oddly, like choice is being taken out of my hands.
It's stressful. For sure. I have two going with CoD and Siege... Battle Passes are fun and rewarding, but they quickly become an obligation for me, and that obligation feels like work... So with the last couple I bought,bi barely even made it to the middle of those passes before I quit...
I really like the idea, but the grind and the commitment is too much sometimes.
Someone bought me a battle pass for Destiny 2 after it went free to play and it was the end of me enjoying playing the game. Destiny has always had that aspect of feeling like missing out with its daily and weekly tasks but this took it to a new level and made it worse by showing the weapons you were destined to get, providing I played a reasonable amount pretty much every day. All of a sudden I wasn't playing because I wanted to or because I was enjoying it, I was playing to tick off boxes on a long arduous journey to get a couple of items. I've never played the game since, nor any games with such mechanics, its just not for me
I would not spend extra money till I started on Modern Warfare. Spent 20 bucks so far. Skipped Black Ops and waiting on MW2021.. No more battle passes till then
Never brought a battle pass and Never will
I hate them. It's made for kids and teens that have nothing else to do in life.
Battle Pass rhymes with Actual Trash
Congratulations! Your conditioning to liking battlepasses is complete. Now spread the word and convert more millennials 😁
I’ve done the free Warframe one and it’s stressful and a bit annoying knowing I’ll never get the top tier stuff!
Constant zombies and when double tier xp comes into play which so far we had it once but both mixed make it a better grind.
Do a write up after completing a battle pass and THEN we'll see how much you like them! As the clock winds down, you'll end up focusing on XP-reward challenges over actually having fun, the game will take up even more free time you don't have, and you'll be pressured into paying to unlock levels to get to 100 (otherwise, it feels like the whole grind was partially a waste).
At that point, you'll probably never want to do another one, or, in my case, you'll do one more before realizing they're somehow worse than paid DLC. Just my experience!
I buy the Genshin Impact BP. The rewards are decent enough and it's stress free to max out well before the time period ends by playing for under one hour a day. Quite happy with it.
If they would just remove the goddamn time limit it would be a superior model in every way.
Cod is not worth all the money people spend, its a game that barely improves year on year. Much beter experiences out there, especially with ps5's new features, single player is the new future.
i liked MW's multiplayer quite a bit, and it has a vastly superior selection of content compared to cold war. however, i utterly detest warzone, after 2-3 matches had no intention of ever playing it again, but activision's continued stubbornness in refusing to let me (and everyone else who wishes to do so) uninstall it ( it's superfluous sh**e wasting 60-70gb of precious hard-drive space ), i deleted the whole game... its abysmal inefficiency in patching (where they're all humungous) didn't help. only about 4 of cold war's maps are worth playing, and grinding out battle pass tiers on that seems like an exercise in tedium. having access to the 30 or so maps from MW would really help.
Nice work Sammy! I enjoyed reading you go in-depth on the subject; like an investigative journalist. I only did Battle Pass for Fortnite (And I guess kinda Fall Guy since it's like a free battle pass) and I'm not sure I'll ever do it again. It'd have to be a game I'm head-over-heels with. I'm just not about games that don't respect my time anymore and in that sense, I feel like there's a reasonable debate to be had as to whether battle pass games are worse offenders than games that have 10 of hours worth of fetch quests. I dont like the idea that I have a limited amount of time to best use the money Ive already spent, then I have to commit a ton of time in order to get the REALLY cool stuff.
it's about $60 for a battle pass(es) for a year. Does that double the game in anyway no? I don't think so and so it's bad value on that thinking. Also, it's timed. this is a leisure product. If I pay $10, it better not ask me to use it schedule. That battle pass better keep progressing along the new one if I paid money for it. The model has questionable value without a time limit, with a time limit it's high-way robbery. $5 that lets you keep going on that reward track forever would be potentially reasonable high-end battle-pass.
I rarely buy battle passes, but picked this up for Cold War to play over the Xmas break. Will be a one time thing.
I'm around level 35. For me got a few skins that I wouldn't have been able to get otherwise since I don't play zombies or have warzone installed. It isn't really worth it unless you put a lot of hours into it. I usually just play Nuketown 24/7 playlist. Multiplayer is a lot of fun. I still think MW is better but for me it is pretty close. Time to kill is still quite low for a black ops game.
I play a couple games that offer them, but I’ve never felt compelled to buy one. Rather spend my money on something more substantial - like a different game.
@stinkyx My favorite action is that they say the season is ending and with one day left and 5 out of 6 passes completed i bought the last 10 levels to find out they where extending the season 1 week.
Thats why i stopped playing Overwatch and as great as MHW was it was all free but every event made me skip every other game so iquit that one too. Liveservice and Battlepasses it makes gaming a chore instead of fun.
And one more thing addressed towards the optional stuff not going along with it feels like you are left out thats my personal opinion.
So we have a €60 game with a BP 9,99 , skins that cost €25 or more and weaponskin packs going at a €20 pricepoint or even more I think it's a bit much.
And let's not forget the timeinvestment where it's not strange that you won't make it on time too finish the BP so you are stuck with the game such a pity. 😐
Is it really cheaper at more easy then before?
God no. Playing on someone else’s schedule? Someone trying to lock you into their game at the expense of others? No. I understand why they would do this, and why it might even be good value for those who only ever play COD/Fortnight/FIFA/GTA Online, etc, but not for me at all. Too much to still play.
@Flaming_Kaiser YEP! My experience exactly!!! And as far as I can tell, things haven't gotten cheaper or easier. You still cruise through the early levels of the pass (because you're completing all the easy XP challenges, like get XX kills with XX weapon) and then it starts crawling when you get to the rewards you actually want. Then you start doing stuff like "get 20 longshot kills with a machine gun" that sound fun on paper get frustrating and time consuming very quickly.
One thing that really helped "free me" from the clutches of DLC and battle passes in Modern Warfare was buying the same skin as the people I play with (so we can all match, thus removing my desire to buy more skins or get battle pass cosmetics).
For games I play by myself, I might treat myself to a $15 premium skin and then am done with DLC until the next season. Way better than merciless grinding out a pass. Costs a bit more than a pass, but I save tons of time, and get a unique look.
@stinkyx Haha, I can imagine. But ultimately even at Tier 22 I feel like I've got my money's worth out of it to be honest. I imagine I'll end up around Tier 50 or so, and honestly I'll be happy with everything I unlocked.
I also much prefer this to the map packs they used to sell, as ultimately all that did was fragment the user base.
@Jaz007 When you factor in that these are helping to fund all of the post-release support, like additional maps that used to be sold separately, it probably does end up significantly increasing the size of the game.
And remember, there's no obligation to buy the Battle Passes. They're completely optional, and even if you never spend a penny you still get (some) free items and access to all of the maps!
@Harryftm1 I would agree with you except that Modern Warfare is actually in the top 3 best multiplayer shooters I've ever played (if not the best). Gunfight, in particular...no more getting shot in the back, no more weapon advantage, just 100% skill and strategy. Amazing game mode, especially with a buddy.
With how bad BLOPS is, there's still TONS of people playing MW. Give it a shot if you can (and not just the free Warzone part of it, which is fun but not what I'm raving about)!
@get2sammyb 100% on the map pack thing! Glad that's over with. And I've definitely gotten "my money's worth" on a pass before it was over, but still grinded it out to level 100 so I could get all the free money in it.
One other thing you might try is not buy the pass until the season is over, and so you know exactly what you're getting.
Also, you and this site rule! Keep up the good work!
The Genshin Impact battle pass is free and I find it to be a waste of time. Literally being in the menu is wasted time. Every second in the menu is a second not spent towards grinding adventure xp. I don't even bother going into the battle pass menu anymore.
I too was on the fence over the battle pass but I ended up buying my first one with Cold War and I also really enjoy it. On tier 65 so definitely plan to get my money back and earn a free battle pass for next season
Find it a bit morally wrong that push square are highlighting Battle passes as I am sure alot of there readers are kids and can be influenced. Just makes me feel uncomfortable and almost doubting @getsammyb motives tbh. I mean is this a paid sponsorship it all just seems morally wrong in my eyes. Battle passes and microtransactions are the dirty seedy part of gaming that means we get ***** like Avengers, Anthem, Fallout76 etc. I can only assume Activision have given you a few quid to basically advertise it. Not a good look at all for Push Square.
@get2sammyb Not very responsible advertising it imo as alot of your readers will be children. Dont agree with this article at all. Smells of paid advertising hidden in a article. Understand we all struggling at present but this is not a good look tbh.
@stinkyx Its a insane amount of time you need too put in the game and it takes so long too max out. And you are right it gets too be a chore and the fun bleeds out of the game. 👍
Battle passes are like Oblivion horse armor. Except they sell you 5 items that are pretty good and then hock a bunch of crap at you to make it seem like you get a lot. The difference is that you get to buy the next 5 items with the coins you get back, unless you fail to grind your way there. I battle pass for PUBG, do great a majority of the time, get far in the matches, and I do the challenges, but still it can easily take 100 hours to level up all the way. If you don't, you will have to spend more money to get the coin you didn't get, so that you can face another tough grind next season.
People are ALWAYS acting like these companies need these to make up for the development, but Activision avoided taxes on about 900 million dollars by sending it to the owner of the rights in a tax haven. The rest of the profits, about 75 million were taxed because that was the employees earnings in the U.K. 900 million went to some mysterious company run by 1 guy and the rest (100 million) went to everybody that makes their games. They aren't using that money because developers need it as income, so the idea that it is about development costs is not a good defense in regards to this practice, yet everybody holds up that shield. U.K. Tax Watch uncovered this and it isn't some made up rant.
I feel Master Chief Collection (MCC) does battle passes the best. The battle passes are free, there's no time limit as when a season ends you can continue earning rewards from that season and you can stockpile season points so that you can get a headstart in the next season.
For example I unlocked all the MCC Season 4 unlocks the day the season began because I had so many season points stockpiled from Season 3.
That said, I have no doubts that this very consumer friendly version of battle pass that MCC has is to prepare people for a very ugly battle pass system for Halo Infinite that is more comparable to CoD, Fortnite, Apex, etc.
@Milktastrophe - The free Genshin Impact BP is pretty underwhelming rewards wise but definitely isn't a waste of time. Everything you do to grind out adventure xp is ticking BP boxes. You're earning rewards by default, why not collect them at the end of a gaming session?
@LordSteev I'm with you on this. I don't like the thought of a game that is forcing deadlines upon me and I don't want games to start feeling like a chore. I'm kind of flighty with games and get bored easily so I switch between games a lot so battle pass type mechanics don't work well at all for me.
@Shigurui because those rewards don't translate into adventure xp or faster ways to grind adventure xp. I don't need more mora or xp cards or anything. I already have millions of that stuff from playing normally.
@stinkyx I found getting to 100 pretty easy in cold war, I'm currently 261. the battlepass gave a lot back for the entry prive.
Your point about the perceived 'pressure' to reach tier 100 is exactly why I've personally never been able to get into these. Same reason I've never subscribed to any MMO's.
The way I see it, the time I spend gaming is supposed to be something done at my leisure, something that I do because I feel like it on that particular day. A battle pass or subscription turns at least some of my game time into yet another task for the day because I 'have' to play that game or I'm wasting the money I spent on it.
@SwitchVogel This is 100% my issue with them. They turn games a little into to do lists and are designed to get you coming back, whether you fee like you want to or not.
@Milktastrophe - Those rewards are freebies for doing all the things that you do while raising adventure xp, it's extra stuff for doing what you're doing anyway. Even the free BP gives fates to pull for wishes on the standard banner. I'm just baffled as to why you wouldn't collect them, but hey, you do you man. What adventure rank are you up to btw?
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