Keeping players excited and interested in a battle royale game is no simple matter, especially for a franchise like Call of Duty that's already heavily criticized for annual projects. Call of Duty: Warzone mixes things up with seasonal content, events, and new maps, but even then players can want something more. That's exactly why Call of Duty: Warzone players are now petitioning for the recently introduced Iron Trials '84 game mode to be kept in the battle royale permanently.
Iron Trials '84 is an altered version of the standard Call of Duty: Warzone experience, said to be the "toughest Battle Royale mode" in the game yet. The mode makes several key changes to increase the challenge of gameplay. First and foremost, it increases the time-to-kill by raising all players' health. Beyond that, sniper rifles, stun grenades, and medical syringes are nerfed to encourage aggression, there are no free loadout drops, fewer vehicles, the Gulag focus on skill-based one-on-one combat, and a variety of loot and buy station pricing changes.
It turns out that a lot of Call of Duty: Warzone players love the challenge posed by the Iron Trials '84 game mode changes. A quickly rising post on the Call of Duty: Warzone subreddit is petitioning for Activision Blizzard to keep the mod permanently. According to the person who originally created the post, they say that while the mode may have been designed for "super good players," it's even better for the "sh**** players, like myself."
The comments of the Reddit post are filled with anecdotes regarding how the Iron Trials '84 mode has been an improved experience for them. One player mentions that it's actually possible to take out opponents with all of their plates, even if you don't have any. Another says that just the fact snipers can't kill people from a massive distance makes the mode better. One other common story is being able to survive a camper who may otherwise be a poor player jumping out of a bush.
That doesn't mean that there aren't negatives associated with the new mode, too. One upvoted comment notes that when they queue with random players, those random players are leaving more often. That's because it's both harder to win in the Gulag and because it costs significantly more to buy back a teammate.
There's, obviously, been no official statement on the topic from Call of Duty: Warzone's developers, for now. There's a completely unreliable rumor going around that the changes in Iron Trials '84 could be a test for similar or larger changes to be made permanently alongside Call of Duty: Vanguard's launch, or that it's related to Call of Duty: Vanguard's multiplayer in some way. That seems a stretch, however. Regardless, fans of Iron Trials '84 are very likely making their opinions heard.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.