Call of Duty battle royale: Activision ‘takes action against Reddit leaker’

Activision has taken steps towards legal action against a Reddit user who allegedly leaked an image of Call of Duty’s unannounced battle royale mode.

Documents obtained by TorrentFreak show that the publisher has requested a DMCA subpoena against the social network site, in order to obtain the identity of a user who posted leaked Call of Duty artwork.

Activision is requesting the court issue a subpoena to Reddit to identify user ‘Assyrian241O’, who posted Call of Duty Warzone key art and later admitted on the site that he’d obtained the material himself.

The image in question is currently being actively circulated online and shows various Call of Duty soldiers atop a downed chopper, with the logo: ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’.

The subpoena request is the latest in a series of actions against Call of Duty leakers, as Activision attempts to suppress leaks of its upcoming battle royale mode.

Since the release of Modern Warfare’s Season 2 update players have seemingly been able to glitch into menus and sections of the battle royale mode.

However, media showing such sections have been aggressively removed from social media sites by the Call of Duty publisher. One popular content creator even saw his Twitter account suspended.

Activision has also reportedly requested the removal of Reddit threads containing information on Warzone.

At least one Modern Warfare player had his game account briefly banned after being inexplicably teleported into the battle royale map and then sharing footage online.

Carter was later able to play Modern Warfare again after seemingly agreeing not to post pictures or videos of the Warzone areas should he encounter them again.

Although Activision is yet to officially announce Warzone (although it has indirectly confirmed it via copyright strikes), we know plenty about what the mode is set to contain thanks to a mix of datamined game files and media reports.

Earlier this week VGC sources indicated the Call of Duty battle royale release date will land on March 10 – much later than expected, considering in-game teasers started appearing in mid-February.

As first reported by VGC, content creators travelled to Los Angeles this week to play and capture footage of the battle royale, ahead of an announcement at a later date. It’s understood the official release date was communicated at the event.

At launch Warzone will feature support for up to 200 players in a squad-based setup.

It will also include a ‘ping’ communication system similar to that of Apex Legends, and introduce its own genre twists such as the Plunder in-game currency, a Gulag respawn mechanic and more.

Many of the locations in Warzone will be familiar to Modern Warfare players, since it’s partially comprised of existing Ground War maps (large multiplayer arenas built for 100 players) stitched together, including Boneyard, Quarry, Port and more.