Premium battle passes are already a ubiquitous (some would say predatory) mechanic in online gaming, but what if there was a premium battle pass to your premium battle pass? That’s the ethos behind Call of Duty: Warzone’s BlackCell upgrades, and players are starting to tire of their predictable aesthetic.
Season 1 BlackCell Battle Pass Upgrade | Call of Duty: Warzone & Modern Warfare III
At its core, BlackCell is an idea that Epic Games is probably kicking itself for not thinking of first. Essentially, players can pay a premium on top of the cost of the paid Battle Pass to unlock an even higher reward track that includes exclusive Operators, skins, finishing moves, and more. This upgrade costs $30, or just under half the price of a modern triple-A game.
With the reveal of the Modern Warfare III iteration of Warzone’s fifth season, its many changes and additions, and its accompanying battle pass, players have begun to notice trends in BlackCell’s content – and they’re not happy. A Reddit thread lamenting BlackCell’s dedication to the black-and-gold aesthetic racked up hundreds of upvotes on the CoD subreddit, with many criticizing the lack of aesthetic variety offered for such a high price.
The black-and-gold color scheme has been used as visual shorthand for “this is premium” for a while now, but there’s been some debate over its appropriateness in a ostensibly serious military shooter (although Warzone does let you play as Homelander, so who’s to say how serious it is?). It doesn’t look good in Assassin’s Creed, and it doesn’t look good here either. The general sentiment seemed to be that the BlackCell skins were little more than style over substance, with the highest-rated comment dismissing them as “lazy shit,” which thankfully meant they “never hesitated to buy it.”