Call of Duty Warzone Mobile launched, but will it run on your potato phone?

Call of Duty Warzone Mobile menu

Hadlee Simons / Android Authority

TL;DR

  • Call of Duty Warzone Mobile is now available on smartphones and tablets.
  • The game weighs in at 1.5GB, with an additional 5GB download upon booting up.
  • You’ll need an Android phone with at least 4GB of RAM and a relatively old GPU to play it.

Call of Duty Warzone Mobile has been available as a limited release for a while now, but Activision has finally decided to fully launch the mobile game on smartphones and tablets.

The company launched Call of Duty Warzone Mobile on Android and iOS today, and the game brings an initial download size of ~1.5GB on Android. Nevertheless, you’ll be required to download an additional 5GB worth of assets before you can start playing.

The game downloads more high-resolution assets in the background as you play, promising better visuals the longer you play the title. It seems like the title doesn’t let you delve into the settings to manually download these graphical assets right now. That’s a pity because the game looks rough from the get-go, so you’re solely at the mercy of the asset-streaming solution to improve the visuals.

Call of Duty Warzone Mobile also doesn’t bring a ton of visual options to play around with, offering visual quality presets (min, low, mid, high, and peak), a toggle to prioritize battery life or frame rate, a max FPS option (topping out at 60fps or uncapped), and a field-of-view slider. It’s worth noting that the min, low, and peak visual presets were locked on my Pixel 7 Pro out-of-the-box. For what it’s worth, Apple’s App Store notes that the iPhone 15 Pro series and iPads with an M1 chip or later can access the peak graphics option, suggesting that the top graphical setting is restricted to Apple devices for now. 

Call of Duty Warzone Mobile graphical settings

Hadlee Simons / Android Authority

The battle royale title will otherwise be familiar to Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG Mobile players, featuring a similar touch-based control system (with support for controllers too) and bots for the first few matches.

Activision also confirmed that the game supports cross-progression, so experience and Battle Pass progression gained on the mobile title transfers to the console/PC Warzone title and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Not sure if you can play the game? Well, the company noted at the time of the limited release that Android owners needed a device with at least 4GB of RAM and an Adreno 618 GPU (Snapdragon 720G and later). The Snapdragon 720G powered mid-tier handsets from 2020, so chances are good that you’ll be able to play it if you’ve got a mid-range phone bought in the last few years. The game also works fine on my Pixel 7 Pro with a Mali GPU despite the specific Adreno GPU requirement, so phones with a mid-range MediaTek or Exynos processor might work fine too.