I’m feeling pretty upbeat about today’s big Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2 Season 3 Reloaded update. That’s because last night my squad and I had a bit of a winning streak. We nabbed two W’s in Warzone and then went on to win 5 out of 6 Ranked games in MWII.

In today’s Reloaded update, these two modes have a baby: Warzone 2 Ranked Play is being added, which blends the competitive ranking system from Modern Warfare II with the Battle Royale mode. It should add some even higher-stakes play to the experience, though I suspect it may lead to a lot more camping as well, especially in the end-game.

So how does Ranked Play work exactly? And how does it compare to multiplayer Ranked? Well let’s dive right in . . . .

Modern Warfare II Ranked Play was added with the launch of Season 2 back in February of this year. It’s a 4v4 mode that uses all the same rules as the Call Of Duty League (CDL). This means the same maps, modes, available guns and so forth. Friendly Fire is turned on, all available weapon attachments for the allowed arsenal are unlocked and only a limited amount of maps and modes circulate. Currently, these are:

Search and Destroy:

Hardpoint

Control

As you play, you go up in Rank and progress through a number of Skill Divisions. These are separate from one another. Rank never goes down and is not reset between seasons. As you rank up you’ll get new icons (see above) and Seasonal Rewards that include Blueprints, Emblems, Calling Cards and so forth.

Skill Division—which is broken up into colored tiers—can rise and fall based on winning or losing, and at the end of a season you are dropped down to a lower Skill Division depending on which one you ended on.

Bronze through Crimson players will start one Skill Division back except for Bronze, which will begin with Bronze Tier I, with Demotion Protection enabled for your first 3 matches.

Iridescent and Top 250 will start at the Diamond Tier I Skill Division with Demotion Protection enabled for several matches.

As you win or lose you gain or lose SR (Skill Rating) points, which determine what Skill Division you fall into. You typically earn more for wins than you lose for losses. Rising through each Skill Division costs more and more SR.

The Skill Divisions are broken up into three parts (Bronze I, II, III; Silver I, II, III etc.) and are earned as follows:

Theoretically, your Skill Division and Rank will help determine who you get matched against, with generally even teams. In practice, this can be pretty hit or miss.

This is a brief overview of how Ranked works in multiplayer so that we have an understanding of the similarities and differences to Ranked play in Warzone 2.

Ranked Play in Warzone 2 will be Battle Royale Trios mode only (at least for now). The Season 3 Reloaded launch of Ranked is considered a beta, so some of the rules detailed below could change with the official, full launch of Ranked in Season 4. Many things changed in Ranked Play after a similar period in multiplayer.

Some of the restrictions you’ll encounter for Ranked Play include:

Unlike multiplayer Ranked, you won’t earn SR just for winning. There’s a more elaborate system of point-earning because this is Battle Royale. But the same general rules apply. You go up in Rank by winning. You go up or down in Skill Division based on winning and losing by earning and losing SR points.

Here’s how you get those:

SR Points are earned for the following:

SR Points earned for kills are determined by squads remaining:

SR Points for Placement are based on squads remaining when you perish:

You can see how a high-kill game with top placement will really pile up the SR Points. Getting a handful of kills in the final circle could add up to 60 or 75 points on top of the placement bonus, on top of any earlier lower-point kills in the game prior to the end-game.

But these are not free! To enter a match you must spend a Deployment Fee, sacrificing SR Points in order to play. The Deployment Fee is based on your Skill Division, and is waived for Bronze players entirely and becomes progressively more expensive the higher you go on the ladder, making matches more high-stakes the better you perform.

Here’s the breakdown:

At the end of the season, the same knockdown rules apply as in multiplayer. Players will be knocked back to the lowest Skill Division tier, one Division below where they ended up. So a Gold III player will be knocked down to Silver I, a Silver III player down to Bronze I and so forth. Diamond I is the highest tier anyone can start at, so anyone above that (Crimson, Iridescent and Top 250) will be knocked down to Diamond I.

Any time a player reaches a new Skill Division and at the beginning of a new season, Demotion Protection will go into effect, protecting you from being knocked down immediately. Other features include:

Lots of rewards are available for playing and ranking up and these will change each season going forward (though some will be available across seasons as well). You earn most rewards by ranking up, rather than via Skill Division. To go up in rank, you need to earn stars. These are earned by getting wins in multiplayer, but in Warzone 2 it’s a bit different:

You need to get stars to go up in rank, and the higher the rank the more stars are required. Rewards include, but are not limited to:

Limited-time rewards for getting Placement and Elimination challenges include:

(Some of these are pictured above in the Warzone 2 Ranked Play Infograph).

This is a truncated “beta” season of Ranked Play, so think of it as good practice for the actual thing when that launches in earnest in Season 4, with more rewards and refined rules. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.

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