We knew that Warzone was about to get a shake up and we’re not disappointed. Activision blew up the original Verdansk map in Call Of Duty Warzone earlier this week and a brand new 1984 Verdansk emerged earlier today. There’s a lot of changes, so let’s run through a few of them.
To play Warzone and access the new map, you’ll need to update. The update for Warzone is 22GB on PS5/PS4, 26GB on Xbox Series X/Xbox One and 25GB on PC.
Modern Warfare is officially over in Warzone. This update marks the move from MW to Black Ops Cold War and takes the map to 1984. When we asked if the old Verdansk would over return, Associate Creative Director, Amos Hodge said “Well, I don’t want to say never. We’ve got no plans to bring current Verdansk back. In our mind we’ve finished the Modern Warfare story, we’ve destroyed it with a nuclear device and we’re moving forward to 1984. So we don’t have any plans on bringing that back. Never say never, but as of right now, there’s no plans to bring it back.”
Whilst we’ve had the biggest map change ever in Call Of Duty: Warzone, the map is still set in Verdansk. Hodge said: “The team wasn’t done telling the story of Verdansk, they wanted to continue that narrative. They wanted to see what happened before this current time period. So this allows us to stay in Verdansk, continue that story and keep everyone engaged.”
In the game there’s six new locations including the Gora Summit which is bigger than many multiplayer maps, Verdansk airport with a brand new Control Tower, and other new areas including Old Mine, the Airplane factory, Verdansk Stadium and more. There’s also a bunch of locations that have been completely changed up to look totally different. More will be changed and added over time throughout Season 3.
Whilst the map feels totally fresh, it still feels like Verdansk. Speaking to Associate Creative Director, Amos Hodge, he said: “That’s definitely the balance we’re trying to strike there is have it feel the same, have it feel comfortable, having it feel familiar and not overwhelm people with the brand new map and you know, all this change. When they get to a location, like Superstore or the airport, they’re familiar with it. So it’s just enough to make them familiar with it, but it’s brand new. One of the main areas we looked at is the gameplay and those rough gameplay areas that we wanted to move out. I mentioned the Quarry location before. Dam was another area where that dam was just a solid wall. And you really couldn’t get from the base of the dam to the top very easily.”
There’s a brand new Gulag in the Verdansk map. It takes place in the main street of Standoff which has wooden partitions filling spaces.
So jump in and let us know what you think of the new Verdansk map.