In traditional Call of Duty fashion, Infinity Ward has developed a battle royale mode for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. What many did not expect is how good it is. Combining the gunplay of CoD with the BR genre in a massive 150 player map has lead to some truly incredible moments that Black Ops 4’s Blackout couldn’t provide.

Part of this reception is also thanks to Warzone’s Plunder mode. Limited lives have been replaced with an emphasis on collecting as much cash as possible, both from the map and from dead players. Some players swear by Plunder’s addictive chaotic matches while others prefer Battle Royale’s focus on skill and tense moments. Here are 5 reasons why Battle Royale is Warzone’s better mode, along with 5 reasons why it’s Plunder.

10 Battle Royale: Economy

After a few patches increased the cost of Loadout Markers and made chests no longer guarantee money, purchasing killstreaks and loadouts now feel more rewarding than ever.

The shortage of cash in the earlier sections of Warzone forces players to loot quickly, take risky engagements against other teams, or complete contracts that encourage players to do one of the two previously mentioned strategies. Solo players need a boost to income to make this balance fairer for lone wolves, but otherwise, the economic balance of Warzone’s BR mode is spot on.

9 Plunder: Marking High-Value Squads

Nothing is worse than a Battle Royale game that encourages camping. While Warzone suffers from this somewhat in its BR variant, Plunder fixed this issue brilliantly.

High-value targets carrying a large sum of cash are marked on the map for everyone to hunt down. Players track down these high-ranking squads to steal their spoils and relocate to deposit their earnings, resulting in frantic gunfights that shift across the map naturally as the game progresses. The Battle Royale mode recently added a new Contract that does something similar, so it seems Infinity Ward wants to embrace this type of gameplay across both modes.

8 Battle Royale: Gearing

Part of what makes BR games so fun is winning matches by the skin of your teeth. This intensity is amplified with randomized loot to keep each game interesting.

Gearing in Warzone’s BR mode is much faster than similar titles on the market, but it still encourages players to explore the map and take risks. To prevent the frustration of dropping into a match and finding no weapons, players start with a pistol to give hot droppers a fighting chance. With the addition of cash and loadouts, Warzone’s BR mode has maintained the intense early-game with finding items while removing much of the RNG frustration tied to that process.

7 Plunder: Spawning With Loadouts

At the other end of the spectrum, Plunder spawns players in with loadouts to make death less punishing. It sounds bad on paper, but this works to the mode’s biggest strengths in practice.

How efficient your squad can loot matters a lot less in Plunder than it does in Battle Royale. Squads must strategize how to take down enemy players and complete Contracts as fast and efficiently as possible. To make this work without the mode being frustrating, spawning players with loadouts was a must. The result is frantic gunfights from the first minute to the endgame and a great opportunity to level your weapons.

6 Battle Royale: More Matchmaking Options

As much hate as the community gave Infinity Ward for not adding BR duos for weeks, this frustration was justified with just how many matchmaking options the Battle Royale mode has.

Players can hop in by themselves in BR Solo, fight against squads of 3 with BR Trios, or engage in truly intense skirmishes in BR Quads. A lack of duos is certainly questionable, but this matchmaking flexibility allows for nearly any team to play a few games of Warzone’s BR mode. Plunder might be much more frantic, but its matchmaking options range from full squads or the mode’s uncommon variant Blood Money.

5 Plunder: Longer Matches

Warzone’s Battle Royale mode can last anywhere from a few minutes to nearly half an hour depending on how good you and your squad are. Plunder matches are much more consistent, ranging from 25 to 30 minutes in length.

This is a double-edged sword, but this typically works to Plunder’s favor. Losing a gunfight is not so drastic in this mode and allows for squads to rebound after losing large sums of cash. It also gives the game more time to let players move across the map and show just how varied the gunfights in each zone are.

4 Battle Royale: Ring Enclosure

While Plunder allows for some tense moments throughout the match, the latter half of most Battle Royale games maintain that feeling by forcing the player to make tough decisions.

This is largely thanks to the gas that draws closer as the match progresses. Enclosing rings of death are nothing new for the genre, but Call of Duty: Warzone is a great example of it done right. With how vertical and spacious the buildings of Verdansk are, it makes escaping the gaseous ring of death much more intense and encourages players to complete Recon contracts. Even if you are towards the center of the ring, there are always a few squads lying in wait.

3 Plunder: Loadout Diversity

M4A1s and RPG-7s are the main weapons of choice amongst many Warzone players. It’s easy to see why: they allow players to clear out entire buildings with explosives while still dominating at medium range.

Since many players stick to buildings in Plunder, submachine guns and even shotguns have a much stronger presence in this mode. It isn’t impossible to do well with SMGs or shotguns in Battle Royale, but the constantly shifting high-value targets and Contracts allow for the entire Modern Warfare sandbox to truly shine.

2 Battle Royale: Tension

Limited lives make every gunfight matter much more in Battle Royale than they ever could in Plunder. One well-placed sniper shot is all it takes to end an enemy’s life, and yours.

Whether you play Battle Royale solo or with a team of 4, there is rarely a dull moment in this game. During quiet moments of traversing the map, there’s always the looming threat of enemy players and traps. Vehicles and killstreaks matter so much more in BR than in Plunder because of this, which allows for some crazy plays that you seldom see in other modes and most FPS titles in general.

1 Plunder: Chaotic Matches

With that said, nothing can beat the rush of losing all of your cash and taking it back from the most valuable squads on the map. Those comebacks are a core part of Plunder’s gameplay loop that is rare in Warzone’s BR mode.

The frequency of cash allows for a constant influx of killstreaks and aggressive squads. No Gulag or permadeath slows this mode down. Strategies can naturally form and shift as matches progress, something that is less common in BR with its limited lives. Plunder feels more in-tune with a 30-minute Battlefield brawl than any CoD mode provided thus far, making this such a fresh approach to the genre that many swear by this mode alone.

NEXT: Call Of Duty Modern Warfare: 10 Best Maps, Ranked