Call of Duty: Warzone is free-to-play, and that means exactly what it says: you download it, install it and play. You don’t need any paid Call of Duty game or a subscription. The money only starts flowing once you’re inside the game, so it’s worth knowing in advance what you’re actually buying there, whether it gives you an advantage and why prices differ depending on where you buy.
What “free” means for Warzone
The game itself costs nothing on any platform. Steam lists it as free-to-play, the PlayStation Store shows it as “Free”, and the same goes for Xbox and Battle.net. It’s not a demo, a trial or a cut-down mode: you get the full battle royale, including all maps and modes.
The most common misconception is that you need to own the “big” Call of Duty to play Warzone. You don’t. Warzone is a standalone client, and anyone can download it even if they’ve never paid a cent for Call of Duty. The paid games, today mainly Black Ops 7 and in the past Modern Warfare, share content and seasons with Warzone, but they’re not a requirement to get in.
How it connects to Black Ops 7
Seasons are shared by both games. Season 06, subtitled The Haunting, was announced on 8 September 2026 and launches on 17 September 2026 in Black Ops 7 and Warzone at the same time. So when you come across Black Ops 7 patch notes, a big part of them applies to you too.
If you own the paid game, you also get the following:
- One battle pass for both games. You buy it once and progress through it by playing either of them.
- Weapons and Operators from Black Ops 7 carried over to Warzone. Anything you unlock by progressing in the paid game that is compatible also shows up for you in the battle royale.
- Cross-progression through your Activision account. Your progress and inventory follow you to any platform linked to your account.
Interestingly, it also works the other way, in favor of those who buy nothing: Warzone keeps older content that doesn’t carry over into new paid games. Operators from Modern Warfare II, Modern Warfare III and Black Ops 6 remain usable in it, even though you can’t use them in Black Ops 7.
What you can buy in Warzone
Everything paid revolves around the in-game currency COD Points. You use them to get the battle pass and bundles in the store; only BlackCell is sold directly for real money in some stores.
Battle pass
A free track of the battle pass exists and gives you twenty tiers of content, so it’s not true that you get nothing without paying. The paid options look like this:
| Option | Price | What you get on top |
|---|---|---|
| Free track | free | 20 tiers of content |
| Battle Pass | 1,100 COD Points | the full seasonal set of rewards |
| Battle Pass Bundle | 2,400 COD Points | the same plus 20 tier skip tokens |
| BlackCell | sold separately | the highest tier with its own skins and bonuses |
COD Points
COD Points are topped up in packs, and the bigger the pack, the more bonus points you get. We checked the Czech Steam store, which charges in euros; as of 12 September 2026 the prices look like this:
| Pack | Price on the Czech Steam store |
|---|---|
| 200 CP | €1.99 |
| 500 CP | €4.99 |
| 1,000 CP + 100 bonus | €9.99 |
| 2,000 CP + 400 bonus | €19.99 |
| 4,000 CP + 1,000 bonus | €39.99 |
| 7,500 CP + 2,000 bonus | €74.99 |
| 10,000 CP + 3,000 bonus | €99.99 |
The practical consequence: there’s no sensible way to cover the 1,100-point battle pass with the smallest packs, because 1,000 points isn’t enough and two 500 packs cost more than a single €9.99 pack, which gives exactly 1,100 thanks to the bonus. This is by design, not a coincidence: microtransaction price tiers almost always land just above what you actually need.
Store bundles
Alongside the battle pass, there’s a store with bundles: Operator skins, weapon blueprints, accessories. The selection changes over the season, and it’s the part of the game where you can spend the most without noticing.
Does any of it give you an advantage?
Activision is clear about it: rewards from the battle pass and BlackCell are cosmetic and give no gameplay advantage. A season’s new weapons actually unlock on the free track. In Season 06, those are the VMP submachine gun and the TR51 Para assault rifle, both for completing a page of free progression. Those who pay get blueprints, meaning cosmetic variants of the same weapons.
That said, it would be unfair not to mention two things. BlackCell adds extra daily challenges, and owners who bought it both last season and this season get a permanent ten percent bonus to player and weapon XP, which stacks with repeated purchases up to fifty percent. It won’t help you in a gunfight, but you unlock things faster than everyone else, and that’s a different category from pure cosmetics. How you play still has a bigger impact on the outcome of a match; we’ve put together a few things that make a difference right away in our tips for beginners.
PC vs. console: do you pay extra anywhere?
The game itself is free everywhere, and COD Points prices depend on the store, not the platform. The difference people ask about most is the subscription:
- PlayStation 5. You don’t need PlayStation Plus to play Warzone. Sony states this explicitly in its official FAQ: free-to-play games don’t require a membership, even though paid games do. What else the subscription gets you is covered in our article on PlayStation Plus tiers.
- Xbox. Since 2021, online multiplayer in free-to-play games has been free, and Warzone is on the list Microsoft released back then. Whether the subscription is worth it for other games is a separate question, and we answer it in our Game Pass article.
- PC. Nothing extra. You just choose between Battle.net and Steam, and point prices can differ between the stores.
FAQ
Yes. The game costs nothing on PC, PlayStation or Xbox, and it’s not a trial. You only pay for content inside the game, mainly the battle pass and store bundles.
No. Warzone is a standalone game and you don’t need the paid game for it. If you have it, you share the battle pass with Warzone and carry over unlocked weapons and Operators.
The standard battle pass costs 1,100 COD Points, and the Battle Pass Bundle costs 2,400 points and adds 20 tier skip tokens. The free track with twenty tiers of content works without paying.
According to Activision, rewards from the battle pass and BlackCell are cosmetic. You get the new weapons on the free track too. BlackCell does add daily challenges and an XP bonus, though, so paying lets you unlock things faster.
No. Sony doesn’t require a membership for free-to-play games, and Microsoft has made online multiplayer in these titles free since 2021. You can play Warzone on both consoles without a subscription.
Information verified as of 12 September 2026. Where to download the game and how much space it takes up is covered in our guide to downloading and installing, and PC requirements and the mandatory Secure Boot in our article on system requirements. The rest of our guides are in the Warzone section.