TL;DR
- Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is about to deliver its 4.0 update on November 14.
- This update will mandate the use of GPUs supporting bindless texturing.
- If your phone or tablet doesn’t make the cut, you can only keep playing through next May.
When’s the last time you had to think about whether or not your phone could run a new Android game? Not necessarily run well, mind you, but just: Will this software even work on my phone? Worse still, when’s the last time you had to worry about an update rendering your phone ineligible to continue playing a game? Some Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile gamers are no doubt shaking their heads in frustration this week, as Activision shares new hardware requirements for a forthcoming update.
Warzone Mobile launched this past spring, and so far it’s been installed on over 10 million devices through Google Play. But the game’s about to stop working on at least some of those phones and tablets once Activision updates it in preparation for Season 01 content.
Specifically, once this new update lands on November 14, you’ll need a device that’s not only running at least Android 13, but also has a GPU that supports bindless texturing. And while that’s very popular on modern GPUs, it wasn’t necessarily just a few years ago. The company provides a list of Mali and Adreno GPUs that can’t handle bindless texturing, but let’s be honest — do you have any clue what GPU your phone’s SoC employs?
Concerned gamers should check out Activision’s list of devices for hardware that fails to meet the new requirements, and while a lot of the stuff on there is pretty expected, there are definitely some surprises; the Razer Edge is just a few years old, but it’s on here. We don’t want you to panic, and if you’ve got a reasonably mainstream phone that’s new enough to still be getting software updates, there’s a very good chance you’re not in any danger here. But if you’ve been holding onto some wonky older phone for maybe longer than is sensibly warranted, don’t be surprised if you see it pop up on Activision’s list.
If you do find your phone on there, you’re not completely out of luck, and you can always skip this update and keep playing on the existing 3.10 release. But even that solution has, like, seven asterisks attached to it. You’re going to need 3.10 on your phone before November 14 — you won’t be able to successfully sideload it after the fact. It’s not going to last forever, either, and while Activision offers a shut-off date of May 5, 2025, the company’s also clear that this is contingent on pretty much everything else going right — if something breaks earlier, you’re out of luck. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about that hardware upgrade, after all?
