Call of Duty Warzone has clocked up 6 million players in its opening 24 hours

Activision’s new free-to-play battle royale, Call of Duty Warzone, has clocked up over six million players in just 24 hours.

By comparison, Apex: Legends – EA’s free-to-play battle royale game set within the Titanfall universe that stealth-released this time last year – attracted one million unique players in the first eight hours, rising to 10 million players in just 72 hours of its debut release. It took Fortnite two weeks to pull off similar numbers, although this time last year it sported an incredible 250 million players (thanks, Eurogamer).

Activision unveiled its new cross-platform battle royale, Warzone, earlier this week. It’s available for free for players on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One and players will not need to own the full version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to play the new game as Activision insists “Call of Duty: Warzone is free for everyone”.

The new free-to-play experience features “signature Call of Duty combat for up to 150 players in a massive world filled with exploration and discovery” and the game includes a new training mode for players to acclimatise to Call of Duty’s mechanics.

Although players participating in Nvidia’s GeForce Now beta intitally had access to games like Overwatch and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the titles have now been removed following a “misunderstanding” between the two companies. Shortly after, Bethesda and 2K also followed suit, although Epic Games says it is continuing to “wholeheartedly supporting” the service.

“Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during the GeForce Now beta, which we took to include the free trial period for our founders’ membership,” explained a statement from Nvidia at the time. “Recognizing the misunderstanding, we removed their games from our service, with hope we can work with them to re-enable these, and more, in the future.”