Warzone Rules

These rules cover every Warzone wager and tournament on NexArena. They sit on top of the House Rules, which apply to every game. Where a match’s own agreed settings differ from anything here, the match settings win — they are what both sides accepted.

Playlists

Both sides always play in one lobby, in one squad. The squad size is picked so the two sides exactly fill it and nobody else can get in, which is what keeps the kill count clean.

• 1v1 Battle Royale — Duos.
• 2v2 Battle Royale — Quads.
• 1v1 Resurgence — Resurgence Duos.
• 2v2 Resurgence — Resurgence Quads.
• Resurgence customs — trios, match-point format. Not running yet.

• If the playlist you need is not in rotation, drop to the next smallest squad size that is and turn Fill off. Spare slots with Fill on means randoms land in your game and their kills muddy the count.
• That is the only time Fill matters. At every other size the two sides fill the squad between them.

Winning

• Best of one: win the map, win the match.
• Best of three: first to two maps.
• Kill race: most kills when the map ends takes that map.
• Survival: whoever lasts longest takes that map. If both sides go out at the same point, kills break it.

The lobby

• One lobby, one squad. There are no separate games and no comparing two scoreboards. A 2v2 is four players dropping together, and the wager is between the two pairs inside that squad.
• The host is drawn by a coin flip when the match fills, not handed to whoever posted it. The host builds the party and invites everyone. The draw is committed before it runs and the seed published after, so either side can check it.

Starting

• Both sides have 10 minutes to check in once the match fills. Anyone who has not checked in by then forfeits and the pot goes to the side that showed up. A side counts as present only when every player on it has checked in.
• The match starts when the plane launches. Anything before that — lobby problems, a bad invite, someone in the wrong playlist — is fixable and should be fixed.
• If a player is not in the squad when the plane launches, the game counts and their side plays short. Do not drop without your opponent.

Scoring

• Operator kills only. Real players. AI, bots and anything the game spawns do not count towards a kill race, however the scoreboard totals them up.
• Kills only. Assists, damage, revives and placement do not count towards the wager unless the match’s own rules say otherwise.
• Kills after a Gulag win or a buy-back count normally. You are still in the game.
• The count is taken from the end-of-game scoreboard, not from the in-game HUD during play.
• A tie is replayed. If either side refuses the replay, the match is voided and both stakes are returned. Nobody wins a tie by default.

Disconnections

The question is always whose fault it was. Your own connection is your problem; a server or a bug in the game is nobody’s.

• Before the plane finishes its run: anyone can back out for lag, packet loss or a disconnect and the game is restarted. After that point the game is under way. Leaving for no reason is not covered by this — bring the proof.
• Your own connection drops mid-game: the game stands. Kills already earned count and your side plays on short. A rule that lets a losing player restart by pulling their cable is worse than the occasional unlucky drop.
• A server fault or a game error drops you — the kind that is plainly not your connection — the map is replayed from the kill count at the moment it happened, not from zero. Screenshot the scoreboard immediately; without it there is nothing to restart from and staff will have to rule on the map as played.
• In a 2v2, if your partner drops and you can still win, leave straight away. Playing on and then asking for a replay after you have lost is not available. Take the scoreboard on the way out.
• Disconnecting on purpose to force a replay is a forfeit and a ban. It is the most obvious way to cheat this rule and it is treated as cheating.
• If the whole lobby drops, the map is void and replayed from the start.

Glitches

• Leave immediately when it happens. A replay is measured from the score at the moment of the glitch, so playing on and reporting it afterwards leaves nothing to measure.
• Frame rate and texture problems are a reason to back out before the plane finishes its run. After that, finish the map and bring a clip — staff decide whether it changed anything.
• Bring proof. A clip showing the glitch is what gets a replay. A description of one does not.
• Staff choose between a full replay and a replay from the score at the time, based on whether the glitch actually cost a kill or a life.

When a map ends

• The score is locked thirty seconds after a side is fully eliminated — all the way dead, not knocked. Kills either side takes after that do not count.
• Do not finish a knocked opponent to end the map early. Wiping the other side inside thirty seconds of them downing someone, to stop that kill landing, risks the match.
• Do not leave early to shorten the map. Quitting while dead so the clock stops on a score you like is interference, and staff can replay it or award it against you.

Replays

• A replay starts from the score staff set — either zero, or the count at the moment something went wrong.
• If you still had your Gulag or respawn unused when the map was cut short, you start the replay one kill up. You were carrying an advantage that the restart took away from you, and the replay should not quietly hand it to the other side.

Settings

• Crossplay or console-only is set when the match is posted. A console-only match means no PC players in the squad, and the streaming rule follows from that rather than from what account you happen to hold.
• Loadouts are allowed. Warzone is played with the loadout system on; it is part of the game, not an exploit.
• Buy-backs are allowed unless the match bans them. Where they are banned, buying a teammate back forfeits that map — the whole point of the ban is that a death stays a death.
• Any setting a match bans is shown in red on the match page before you enter.

Console-only matches

• A PC player must not enter a console-only match. If you join one by mistake, say so and cancel it before the plane launches — that costs nobody anything.
• Once the game has been played, the result stands. Whatever platform everyone turned out to be on, a completed game is not undone afterwards. This cuts both ways: you cannot use it to escape a loss, and you cannot bank a win from a lobby you should not have been in — staff will treat a deliberate one as cheating.
• Console-only removes the streaming obligation, because there are no PC players in the lobby. Entering one on PC is therefore also a way of dodging a VOD, and is treated that way.

Banned behaviour

• Teaming. Working with your opponent, or with randoms against your opponent, to inflate a count.
• Kill feeding. Letting anyone die to you on purpose, including a friend dropped into the lobby to farm.
• Stream sniping. Watching your opponent’s stream during the match. Run a delay — if you have no delay and win a suspicious match, you will struggle to defend it.
• Any cheat or unfair advantage. Aim assistance on mouse and keyboard, modded controllers, scripts, packet manipulation, or playing on an account that is not yours.
• Smurfing and rating manipulation. Losing on purpose to drop tiers, or playing on a second account to sit below your real level, is a permanent ban and the winnings are reversed.

Submitting proof

• PC players must stream and keep the VOD. No VOD in a dispute is a forfeit, whatever the scoreboard showed.
• Console players are not required to stream but are strongly encouraged to. In a dispute a VOD beats a screenshot every time.
• One uncropped frame of the end-of-game scoreboard, showing every player’s name and kill count. A shot of your own row proves only that you can crop an image.
• Screenshot the scoreboard before you leave, and again if a map is cut short by a disconnect or a glitch. There is no way to recover it afterwards, and without it staff have to rule on the map as played.
• Submitting altered or fabricated proof is a permanent ban.

Your Activision ID

• The Activision ID on your NexArena profile has to be the account you play on. It is how your opponent invites you and how staff match a name on a scoreboard to a person who staked money.
• It has to be readable in your proof. A scoreboard nobody can tie to either player settles nothing. If your in-game name differs from your NexArena username, that is fine — but the Activision ID on your profile is what links them.
• Do not change it while a match or a dispute is open. Changing the ID mid-dispute makes your own proof unverifiable, and it will be ruled against you.
• Play on your own account. An ID that turns out to belong to someone else, or a scoreboard showing an account that is not the one on your profile, is treated as account sharing — the match is forfeited and the winnings reversed.

Interfering with your opponent

You win a kill race by killing more people, not by making your opponent’s game worse. Anything you do to them rather than to the lobby is interference, and staff will forfeit a game over it — but only where it plausibly changed the result. If you were mathematically out of it before the interference happened, you did not lose because of it.

• Do not shoot at your opponent or engage them without cause. You are in the same lobby to race, not to fight each other.
• Do not call their position out in proximity chat or otherwise hand the lobby their location.
• Do not destroy a balloon or zipline they are actively riding. Untouched ones are fair game; one with your opponent on it is not.
• Do not spam pings to drown out what they are listening for.
• If you get into their vehicle, you accept where it goes. The driver owes you nothing — out of the circle, into a wall, or a door opened at altitude are all on you for climbing in.

This list is not exhaustive and is not meant to be. The reliable way to avoid a sabotage ruling is to stay away from your opponent and play the lobby.

Items that undo a death

A kill race is scored on kills sticking. Anything that puts a dead player back in the game for free distorts that, so these are banned in every Warzone wager:

• Gulag Kit
• Redeploy Kit
• Reinforcement Flare

• Picked one up by accident? Put yourself back where you should be — lose your Gulag, or down yourself as soon as you redeploy. Fix it yourself and it is not a problem; use it and it is a forfeit.
• The redeploy everyone starts with is fine. It is part of the mode. Theban is on collecting extra tokens and cashing them in.

Redeploy towers

• Bringing your own teammates back with a tower is allowed.
• Once your whole side is dead, you are out. If your opponent triggers a tower and it puts you back in, down yourself immediately. Kills taken after your side was fully eliminated will not be counted and chasing them risks the game.

Helicopters and vehicles

• Helicopters are allowed unless the match bans them. The setting is shown on the match page before you enter.
• In a match where they are banned, touching one forfeits that game — whether or not it helped, and whether or not the game was played to the end. There is no version of this where flying was an accident.

AFK players

• Do not farm players who never moved. Sitting at the back of the plane line to pick off people who are away from their controller is not a kill race, and those kills are not what your opponent staked against.
• If you think your opponent is doing it, the proof is on you to bring — that is what the VOD is for. Staff decide whether it is a replay or a forfeit based on how much of the margin it accounts for.

Knocks

• Do not sit on a knock to deny the kill. Downing someone and then keeping them alive so your opponent cannot finish them is stealing the point rather than earning it.
• Same as above: the accuser brings the proof, and staff choose between replay and forfeit.

Loadout glitches

• Dropping weapons in the pre-game lobby and landing on them is banned in every Warzone match. Starting a game with gear the mode does not give you is not a clever strategy, it is a different game.
• Landing on a random player’s dropped loadout is fine. You did not set it up and you have no way to avoid it.
• The player making the accusation provides the proof.

Hackers and game faults

• Dying to a cheater in the lobby is nobody’s fault. If a hacker, a server fault or a game bug plainly decided the result, staff can void the game and have it replayed rather than pay out on it.
• This is not a way out of a losing game. It applies where the evidence shows the outcome turned on it, not where it was merely present in the lobby.

Disputes

• Both sides report the result. Agreement pays out immediately; a conflict freezes the pot for staff review and nobody is paid until it is settled.
• Staff rule on the evidence. Where both sides have proof and it conflicts, the match is voided and both stakes are returned rather than guessed at.
• Rulings are final. Deliberate fraud costs the account, not just the match.

Still unclear on something? The FAQ covers check-in, hosting, tiers and payouts in plain language.