Playing ‘Warzone 2’ With Fnatic Moonryde, One Of Italy’s Top Pro Gamers

Warzone 2 Duos mode is tough, even when you’re playing with one of the best Call Of Duty players in the world. With only two players in your squad, there’s no room for error and not many second chances. If another Duo takes you by surprise, your chances of survival are pretty low.

When I dropped into Al Mazrah—Warzone 2’s sprawling new map—with Fnatic Moonryde, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Dario ‘Moonryde’ Ferracci is one of Italy’s biggest gaming stars with over 600,000 Twitch followers and over 7,500 paying subscribers. He’s also an accomplished—and entertaining—pro gamer. I, on the other hand, am but a mere casual—a halfway decent Call Of Duty player with no history of streaming or playing for an audience. Now I’d be playing live for thousands of viewers. That’s enough to give me stage-fright, even at my computer.

I had no reason to worry, of course. We were live on Twitch but the audience was there for Moonryde and Moonryde only, an ebullient content creator with an infectious enthusiasm for gaming and much better English than my Italian. It’s easy to see why Ferracci has become so popular. He has both talent and charm and while we lost both of the two Duos matches we played—I blame the connection issues and lag since he was in Italy and I was here in the States, as well as the myriad problems plaguing the game at launch—it was a blast playing with someone who really knows Warzone inside and out.

Well, the first Warzone anyways. When we played our pair of Warzone 2 matches, the game was only a few days old and we were all still getting used to the new map and the new looting and shooting mechanics. I’m more of a multiplayer guy, while Moonryde is all about Warzone.

When we drop in, it’s during a multi-day, 24-hour livestream Moonryde is grinding out for the launch of Warzone 2. I’m not clear how this works. I can play Warzone for a few hours, but a few days? It turns out, the stream keeps going even when the gameplay stops. He keeps the livestream on when he eats. He keeps it on even when he sleeps, he tells me, though sleeping hours also mean a muted microphone. This is why I don’t stream, I joke. Inside, all my personal privacy alarm bells are going off.

Truly, not everyone is cut out to be a successful Twitch streamer.

Fnatic Network

Moonryde is Ferracci’s gamertag—his gaming moniker and professional player handle—and Fnatic is the eSports organization he belongs to. It’s basically like a pro sports league but for video games. In fact, Ferracci was the first member of Fnatic’s main roster who came up through the Fnatic Network, a program that seeks out grassroots talent and supports them on their journey to going pro—if they have the skillset required to join the top tier of competitive gaming.

Moonryde has been streaming for roughly seven years, though he’s been a lifelong gamer. He tells me that the first Call Of Duty he played was the first Call Of Duty back on PS2 (which released in 2003). But when he originally started streaming he had a very different goal in mind: To become a 3D artist working on developing games rather than playing them. One thing lead to another. He started playing League Of Legends, PUBG, and other popular competitive streaming games and instead of a 3D art channel, his Twitch just naturally evolved into a gaming channel.

Moonryde says the Fnatic Network helped provide support, brainstorm ideas, establish routines and grow his channel. When he first joined, his streams were averaging around 800 viewers—which is already a great number. Through the program, he was able to grow that number to an average of around 6,000 viewers per stream, with a peak of over 80,000. To put this into perspective, the vast majority of streamers have fewer than 10 viewers per stream. If you average around 20 viewers per stream, you’re in the top 1% of Twitch.

He was signed to the main Fnatic roster in 2021, after about nine months in the program. For many years he says, he streamed with no viewers, only with his passion for gaming. The persistence paid off. “I’m so glad, because now I have a lot of people to reach with my passion and to give them a lot of energy and to give them a lot of fun, a good experience, good content.”

Streaming Is A Tough Business

Moonryde clearly has the skills and the personality to be both a successful pro and a top streamer. Before I played with Ferracci I watched some clips of his streams—mostly in Italian—and can definitely see what draws viewers. He’s theatrical, at times donning costumes or doing silly dances, and he always looks like he’s having fun. When he does speak in English it’s to say, “Let’s go!” On-stream he’s quick to smile, even when things don’t go his way. If he’s not having fun, he says, his viewers won’t be either.

Ferracci acknowledges that it’s become harder than ever for new streamers to make a name for themselves in the increasingly competitive market for eyeballs. He tells me that there isn’t one magical trick to becoming a successful streamer. It’s a combination of things. Without talent, people won’t tune in. But without having fun and being entertaining, talent won’t go that far either.

Interacting with fans during streams, putting on a good show—that matters even more than winning, he says. Moonryde describes himself as “an energy streamer” and anyone who watches will understand why. He also says that consistency is crucial to building a loyal following. But so is luck, so are connections. It’s a lot of work, in other words, to play games successfully for a living.

“It’s very hard to become a streamer now,” he says, “Because a lot of people want to do our job, want to do streaming, want to become famous. Of course, you have a dream,” he says, but if you make it all about money, people will recognize that. “People are not stupid, you know?” They can recognize fakes and cheaters and people in it for the money and not the passion.

Warzone 2

Moonryde’s primary streaming title is Warzone—and now Warzone 2—but he has a few criticisms of the new game. The extraction DMZ mode, in which players load into the Al Mazrah map, fighting both bots and enemy players in order to gain loot, cash and XP, could use some work. “It’s cool but it could be better,” he tells me. The main problem is the lack of stakes. It’s important to fear losing your loot, he says, and right now “you don’t have that fear.”

Other issues Moonryde has with the game are shared by much of the player base. “Backpacks are good,” he says, but looting can be a pain, and too slow and clunky when you have to go prone and crouch to grab some items. All of this leads to wasted time and frustration. Other issues, like TTK could be adjusted he says, “But I love the game, I love the game.” He praises the guns and gunplay, the new movement mechanics and the sound. He’s not as worried about my main concern—the lack of Warzone’s excellent Resurgence mode—because he’s more interested in pure battle royale.

We win our first 2v2 Gulag together and drop back into the match—but not for long. A squad takes us out not long after we loot back up. Our second match is even shorter, with lag issues making every firefight even more challenging. So it goes in battle royale games, even when you’re playing with a pro. You win some, you lose a bunch. And hopefully—like Moonryde—you have fun either way.

Tune into Fnatic Moonryde’s Twitch channel here.

Moonryde is an Italian Warzone creator for Fnatic, the number one esports organisation in the world. Moonryde was the first talent to join the main roster having come through Fnatic Grassroots, the organisation’s grassroots academy.