Game wise it is very playable and offers a lot of variety and scope and so long term interest for those looking for a turn based strategy game
It needs no bells and whistles and would be worse for it

But is it keeping up on the player numbers or is it in decline
If the latter then fizzed needs to do some marketing because it does not imho deserve to fall down the ranks

Forum activity and map of the week participation has dipped. I don't know about the number of games being played. It does seem like the community is getting smaller but maybe that does not correlate with the number of games being played or the number of active players.

I doubt it will maintain the very high levels it reached during the year because of Covid, but I would be surprised if the numbers dropped below what they were before that.

I don't think the number of players is dropping but almost all the players that have been around for a very long time say that it's in slow decline so I may be wrong

i have 4k active friends and most ppl talk of ppl I've never heard of so I'd say it's about 10k active ppl with 300 new ppl a day and those guys don't stick around. Based on ladders I'd say further that not many players but I'm sure if we share this game to the right fan base they'd jump on board.

number of players in the strategy community is pretty stable imo, eg:


number of players for the seasonal's is steady over the last 10 or so (around 200-250)
multi-template ladder currently has a high number of players (was 30 at one point, and is now 110)
1v1 ladder has more than usual (I think it used to be around 350, now 450)
nations cup has a ton of interest
ekstone's AWP continues to go strong
new maps and templates for strategy community have been made in the last year
there's 5-10 players who've got good this year, and some old players came back


forum use is down but that's because a lot of the discussions have migrated to discord.

that said, a bunch of this is probably helped by covid. you could maybe make the case that pre-covid things were declining a bit?

Edited 1/6/2021 23:57:16

But is it keeping up on the player numbers or is it in decline
If the latter then fizzed needs to do some marketing because it does not imho deserve to fall down the ranks

Warzone's player numbers have historically been remarkably stable, per Semicedevine's leak last summer (https://bit.ly/warzone-datadump).

I doubt that's changing now.

One way you can easily check is to create a new account and see what player number it gets (ignore the first and last 2 digits of the profile ID; the middle ones just increment by 1 for each new account). I just created one and it got the player number 1336359. Subtracting the player ID of an account I created in very early November of last year, we see that the player number has increased by ~25,500 in the last 67 days: about 380 new accounts per day, in line with Semice's old calculation of ~280/day.

That's entirely consistent with Warzone's growth rate before, so it looks like Warzone growth is holding steady (or even increasing) in terms of new accounts (that get IDs) created each day. There may be other trends going on with how many accounts stick around, how many old players retire, etc., for which Quicksilver's analysis above is more useful. Fizzer's own statements on stream (to the tune of "no one really leaves Warzone") make me suspect Warzone's retention trends are rock-solid for its niche genre.

Also, as usual: #TrustInFizzer

Edited 1/7/2021 00:45:26

In general, it's rare for many games to last very long. Anything past 5 years is considered a remarkable success in the gaming industry. People tend to get tired or lose interest after a while. As an online gamer of over a decade for various games, I usually stick to a game for a year (two the most) and then move on.

I first came across Warlight on a flash games sight (with the original 6 challenges) I think around 5 years ago. After dozens of attempts, I was able to beat the insane challenge back then (was never able to beat it again after being directed where to find it here, so I must have really been lucky back then or maybe my strategy brain has gone to mush). That experience was very good, that I never forgot the game (there are very few "flash" games that I remember long after playing it and take an interest

I took a hiatus of ~6 months, and its nice to see familiar names from back then. I personally am not a fan of pvp (I did it out of necessity because of needing to unlock settings to customize challenge levels). I like single player games against the AI.

As long as people care, Warzone will be around. As for marketing, its challenging for Indie Gaming, because either a player likes the game or they don't. The first couple levels of single player are enough to make that determination.

One interesting metric I look at (as a challenge creator) is the play log for names and attempts on challenges (although my challenges are on the harder side, not insane challenge but pretty up there), there I see players who are not active in pvp or forum activity but they do play. In a couple cases, I have reached out (ie: congratulating the first to clear, giving hints to someone who has attempted over 10 times and have yet to win as that player is really determined, asking anyone who wins that level more than 3x on their perspective/feedback, which when a level has ~20% clear rate makes such feedback interesting).

However, about the "decline", perhaps the issue is forums are an outdated tech because the communication isn't real time, its not easy to search for topics that may have already been brought up, not to mention there is not convenient way the question to the right people. Some posts even go unanswered, and interesting, I believe once a thread goes 30 days without a post, you can't post on that thread anymore (which for some topics are perfectly valid), but others like the help topic (I found one unanswered help thread that aged, where I had to PM the player to help them), that makes it harder to actually have a sense of community.

Discord does solve some challenges, but I personally don't like having to use another appartus for the same game if I can help it. Warzone is one of those games where thankfully you don't need to interact with others to play.

However, about the "decline", perhaps the issue is forums are an outdated tech because the communication isn't real time, its not easy to search for topics that may have already been brought up, not to mention there is not convenient way the question to the right people. Some posts even go unanswered, and interesting, I believe once a thread goes 30 days without a post, you can't post on that thread anymore (which for some topics are perfectly valid), but others like the help topic (I found one unanswered help thread that aged, where I had to PM the player to help them), that makes it harder to actually have a sense of community.

Discord does solve some challenges, but I personally don't like having to use another appartus for the same game if I can help it. Warzone is one of those games where thankfully you don't need to interact with others to play.

There's a built-in chat on Warzone in case you didn't know. https://warzone.com/multiplayer?chatroom=1

https://warzone.com/multiplayer?chatroom=69 (test)