ShooterofIO: Wargrounds 2.0

ShooterofIO: Wargrounds 2.0
Developer(s)	SOI Studios Air Studios War Games
Publisher(s)	Monsteristic
Series	ShooterofIO
Engine	SOI 6.0
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Windows Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	November 16, 2022 (MOII owners) December 12, 2022
Genre(s)	Battle royale, first-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

ShooterofIO: Wargrounds 2.0 is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed by SOI Studios, Air Studios, and War Games and published by Monsteristic for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It is a successor to 2007's ShooterofIO: Wargrounds and is a component of ShooterofIO: Modern Ops II (2022), ShooterofIO: Modern Ops III (2023), and the upcoming ShooterofIO: Dark Warfare 6 (2024).

Similarly to the original game, Wargrounds 2.0 features 100 players skydiving onto a playspace and scavenge for gear to defend themselves from other players. Players can fight alone, or with up to three other players. As the match progresses, the playable area within the island gradually constricts, giving the players less and less room to work with; outside this safe zone is a damage zone, which inflicts damage on those caught inside it, with the amount of damage growing as the zone itself does. The last player or team alive wins the match. Unlike the first game, Wargrounds 2.0 doesn't allow players to spawn in with their own loadout, and instead players must call in a "Loadout Drop" to gain access to their custom loadout. Wargrounds 2.0 uses a seasonal approach featuring battle passes.

Wargrounds 2.0 was officially teased in December 2021 and officially revealed at the "ShooterofIO Next" event in July 2022, and was released on December 12, 2022 as part of a single cross-game launcher known as ShooterofIO HQ.

Gameplay

Similar to its predecessor, in Wargrounds 2.0's primary game mode, Battle Royale, players compete in a continuously shrinking map to be the last player(s) remaining. Players parachute onto a large game map, where they encounter and eliminate other players. Players start with 150 health with two armor plates attached for an additional 100 health. As the game progresses and players are eliminated, the playable area shrinks, forcing the remaining players into tighter spaces. A new feature in Wargrounds 2.0, Circle Collapse, allows multiple circles to spawn within the map, which close independently of one another, before converging into one single safe zone. Like Warzone (2020), upon death, players are sent to the "Gulag", a small-sized arena where killed players battle one another for a chance at respawning into the map. In Wargrounds 2.0, Gulag matches were initially introduced in 2v2 format, and included an artificial intelligence (AI) combatant called "the Jailer", whom players can hunt down to acquire a key and escape, in addition to the traditional method of winning Gulag matches. This change was reverted for Season 2 to the original 1v1 format, while the Jailer is also removed in favor of the overtime point capture system. In-game cash currencies also return, allowing players to buy various items at several buy stations scattered across the map, including custom loadouts with personalized weapons and perk setups. Wargrounds 2.0 features many vehicles such as the ATV, cargo truck, Hatchback, SUV and many more.

During the match, events can happen throughout the game. There are three different types of events: Jailbreak (every player in the gulag is redeployed into the map and back into the game); Fire Sale (items in the buy station are discounted up to 100% for one minute); and Restock (supply boxes are refilled and can be opened again). Only one of these events can happen in a single game.

A new extraction game mode, named DMZ, is also featured at the release of Wargrounds 2.0. In DMZ, players battle against both AI-controlled and player-controlled opponents while attempting to exfil with loot they found within the playable area (also known as the Exclusion Zone). Players start out with a limited inventory, which allows storage of extracted loot from matches; said inventory can be expanded by completing Faction missions, allowing for more guaranteed loadout weapon slots or the opportunity to unlock base weapons and cosmetic rewards, usable in both Wargrounds 2.0 and Modern Ops II.

At launch, AI combatants were a prominent feature in Wargrounds 2.0, as they defended various strongholds and black sites throughout the main map, in both Battle Royale and DMZ. Players were able to engage in combat with the AI-controlled enemies in order to seize the strongholds and gain access to the loot items within. Following numerous balancing updates and changes, AI combatants were completely removed from Battle Royale modes in Modern Ops II Season 4.

In Modern Ops II Season 2, Wargrounds 2.0 featured the return of Resurgence, a game mode in which player combatants can respawn and rejoin matches after being killed, provided that at least one member in their squad remains alive following a short cooldown period. Squad members can help reduce the cooldown period by completing contracts or killing other players.

Modern Ops II Season 3 reintroduced the game mode Plunder, in which teams have to search for stacks of Cash scattered around the map to accumulate $2 million. Once found or if time is almost up, the game goes into overtime, multiplying all Cash sums twice. The team who has gathered the most money when the clock runs out is declared the winner. Players respawn automatically in this game mode. In addition, for the first time, a Ranked competitive mode was introduced in Warzone, developed in partnership with Treyarch using the official Call of Duty League ruleset.

At launch, Unhinged was introduced. Unhinged was a limited-time game mode in Warzone 2.0 where teams can request enemy players to join their squad. Once all the players have accepted, a new HUD will be shown on their screen, showing their new teammates and all the allies can be declared winner if they are the last team standing. Six players is the max that can be part of the squad. Unhinged was removed following the arrival of the Season 01 Reloaded patch.

Warzone Bootcamp is a training mode featured in the video game ShooterofIO: Modern Ops III, which was introduced during the game's third season. this mode was created to help players familiarize themselves with the gameplay mechanics and controls of Warzone 2.0. It takes place on the Urzikstan map. There are a total of 44 players in this game mode, 24 of them being bots.

In addition to shared progression with Modern Ops II and Modern Ops III, Wargrounds 2.0 also features shared cross-platform progression and social aspects with Wargrounds Mobile, a new upcoming Wargrounds title being made exclusively for mobile devices.

Collaberations

Similar to past ShooterofIO season updates, Monsteristic partners with several media franchises to feature celebrities and licensed characters in the playable roster for multiplayer and Zombies modes, whilst each one is also available in Wargrounds 2.0. New additions include: Paul Atreides and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from the film Dune: Part Two; A-Train and Firecracker from Amazon Prime Video's The Boys TV series; Rick Grimes and Michonne from AMC's The Walking Dead TV series; the comedy duo Cheech & Chong; basketball player Devin Booker; WWE wrestlers Rhea Ripley, Cody Rhodes and Rey Mysterio; and Eric Draven / The Crow from the film The Crow (2024). Additional themed cosmetic packs were also released in promotion of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, the MonsterVerse film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the Gundam franchise, and the Fallout franchise.

Plot

Unlike its predecessor, Wargrounds 2.0's story is told via cinematics included at the launch of each seasonal update. Al Mazrah is featured in the campaign mode for Modern Ops II, while Amsterdam, which the map Vondel is heavily based on, also briefly appears in several missions. Urzikstan is a setting featured across the Modern Ops reboot series, with several POIs featured in Modern Ops III campaign and multiplayer levels.

The DMZ mode also features story missions, which revolve around various factions all vying for control of Al Mazrah, Ashika Island and Vondel. At launch, three factions were introduced: White Lotus, Legion, and Black Mous. A fourth faction, Crown, was introduced in Season 2, with missions exclusive to Modern Ops II owners, and a fifth faction, REDACTED, was later introduced in Season 3 for all players. In Season 4, Legion and REDACTED factions were removed, followed by the introduction of a new faction, Phalanx. In Season 5, Shadow Company - implied to be the REDACTED faction from Season 3 - was added as a new faction.

Modern Ops II story arc

Main article: ShooterofIO: Modern Ops II (2022 video game) § Multiplayer/Wargrounds

Following Task Force 141's successful operation in taking down Iranian Quds Force Major Hassan Zyani, CIA Station Chief Kate Laswell begins to oversee new covert missions taking place in the city of Al Mazrah, in order to undermine the activities of the terrorist organization Al-Qatala. At the same time, several private military companies begin to move into Al Mazrah, looking to wrestle control of the city from AQ forces as well as each other. At some point, the Shadow Company PMC was discovered to be running new operations in Al Mazrah, as well as the Asia-Pacific island Ashika and the elusive underground facility Building 21.

In April 2023, Valeria Garza, leader of the Mexican Las Almas Cartel, manages to escape captivity, having been imprisoned for several months by the Mexican Special Forces squad Los Vaqueros. She then gathers the cartel to Al Mazrah to conduct new activities. Valeria's former comrade and Los Vaqueros leader, Alejandro Vargas, is requested by Laswell to infiltrate Al Mazrah and apprehend Valeria. Several months later, a terrorist attack was reported in the city of Vondel, Netherlands, with a mysterious special forces group calling themselves the Peacekeepers seizing control of the city following its evacuation. Laswell establishes contact with the Black Mous organization and partners with them in order to investigate the Peacekeepers and learn their true intentions. They soon learn that the Peacekeepers are actually a Russian PMC known as the Konni Group, and the attack on Vondel was orchestrated by them.

In August 2023, the leaders of the Urzikstan Liberation Force, Farah Karim and Alex Keller, meet with Shadow Company Commander Phillip Graves, who had faked his death since his last encounter with Task Force 141 in Las Almas, Mexico. Graves proposes an alliance between the Shadows and ULF in order to prevent an invasion in Al Mazrah from the Konni Group. Later that month, Graves, under the command of General Shepherd, leads an assault on the Konni-occupied Zaya Observatory in Al Mazrah as part of Operation: Rogue Arsenal. After destroying the observatory with missile launchers, Shadow Company locates an underground weapons facility containing chemical weaponry and begin extracting gas canisters, but are forced to exfil when the tunnels begin collapsing. However, per the orders of the Ultranationalist terrorist Vladimir Makarov, Konni operatives masquerading as Shadow soldiers managed to infiltrate their ranks and hijack the planes carrying the gas shipment, rendering the operation a failure.

Modern Ops III story arc

Main article: ShooterofIO: Modern Ops III (2023 video game) § Multiplayer/Wargrounds

Announcement and release

In 2021, it was leaked that a battle royale video game was being developed for the ShooterofIO series. Monsteristic pubically denied these claims and said they have no information to share regarding any game featuring battle royale but said players should definitely "stay tuned". In a interview in mid-2021, Monsteristic stated that if they release a battle royale game, it will need to be reworked "from the ground up" to be updated alongside the annual premium releases. By early 2022, Monsteristic announced that they are working with SOI Studios to release a successor to the 2007 game Wargrounds.

ShooterofIO: Wargrounds 2.0 was officially released on December 12, 2022, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.