Everything We Know About Call Of Duty: Warzone's Keycards

A huge update hit Call of Duty: Warzone in late April 2020. Normally, gamers would focus on the new weapons, game modes, or bug fixes. However, a small, seemingly insignificant item has captured the attention of the player base and is taking the internet by storm: Red Access Cards. Also referred to as "keycards," these little rectangular pieces of digital plastic have popped up in Warzone matches. As far as anyone can tell, they serve no purpose, a fact that is driving gamers insane. 

Why would a developer insert a useless item into a game? Players are stumped and searching high and low for answers. Everyone and their grandmother wants to know where they can find keycards, how to use them, and if they come in colors other than red. Much about these cards remains a mystery, but Warzone fans have tirelessly scoured the Internet and game files for clues. 

Here's everything that's been found so far about Warzone's keycards.

If you play a round of Call of Duty: Warzone, you probably won't find a Red Access Card. These items are only found in legendary loot chests (the orange ones), and even then, the odds of a keycard spawning are extremely low. Kotaku writer S.E. Doster provided a firsthand account of a long Warzone session where they played for hours and opened "a lot" of legendary chests and didn't find a single card. Given the rarity of this item, it's a miracle anyone knows anything about it.

Once you find a keycard, it will be extremely obvious. The Red Access Card looks like a plastic keycard you swipe to open doors and includes an orange tooltip coloration denoting its rarity. Moreover, the icon next to the card's name is the same as the Self-Revive Kit's icon. Nobody knows what this means since the keycard doesn't currently serve any purpose, especially one that revolves around reviving players. The icon may be a placeholder or have a deeper meaning players have yet to discover.

Anyone who grew up in the '90s probably played games like DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D, and those games are full of colored keycards. FPS games from that golden age revolve around collecting keycards to open their associated doors: Red keycards open red doors, blue keycards open blue doors, and so on. If you played these kinds of titles, you might assume Call of Duty: Warzone's Red Access Card opens a red door. A reasonable assumption, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Warzone's map is littered with secret. The most bewildering of all are the bunkers, computers, and telephones. In most battle royale games, these items serve as set dressing, but in Warzone players can interact with them. Sort of. The keypads outside of bunker doors, as well as the telephones and computers, have interact commands, but they don't actually do anything, even when a player holds a keycard. 

Data miners have discovered game code that purportedly opens the bunker doors, as well as animations of said doors opening. Nobody knows how to open the doors just yet, but the keycards might hold the answer. Or maybe players will use the cards inside the bunkers — nobody knows, especially since the game files reference more keypads than are currently in game.

To add to the keycard conundrum, some data miners have also discovered references to Green and Blue Access Cards.This revelation raises more questions and deepens the mystery behind the cards, as does the realization that the text on the actual card reads "B2." Could this relate to Zone B2 on the Warzone map (Airport Maintenance)? Does the label mean something else entirely? So many questions, so few answers.

Since Call of Duty: Warzone is an online, live service game, the developers need to churn out a steady stream of content that keeps players coming back for more. Narrative director Taylor Kurosaki told VentureBeat the dev team is planning limited-time Fortnite-esque events that will alter the world. He didn't say what the team has in store, just that "it'll all make sense, and it'll all feel appropriate to the universe." 

Normally, this would raise the question of what is appropriate for Call of Duty, but many players already have some good ideas: nukes and zombies. Now, nukes are nothing new to Call of Duty, as the Tactical Nuke is a popular killstreak that is difficult to earn but a guaranteed game ender when it lands. Many players float the theory that a future Warzone event will feature nukes, and keycards will play a major role in the mode. Players might use the keycards to launch the nukes or enter the bunkers to avoid the nukes.

As for zombies, they have been synonymous with Call of Duty since Call of Duty: World at War up until Black Ops 4. Many players believe zombies might return in Warzone — complete with a use for keycards — as the game features some subtle nods to the Zombies game mode. For instance, sometimes when Warzone's circle changes, the Zombies mode round change music plays. Plus, many players have heard inhuman screams emanating from the game's dam.

Now, these noises do not mean zombies will appear in the game and could simply be cute Easter eggs — or dog howls. But if zombies will soon swarm Warzone, perhaps the Red Access Cards will play a vital role in the zombie mode. Maybe players will need to find keycards that open bunkers to escape the undead horde? You'll have to wait and see.