Activision has begun teasing next week’s highly anticipated launch of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Season 3, which will refresh the battle royale game’s Verdansk map.
“The end is near,” the official Call of Duty Twitter account said on Tuesday, confirming plans for an in-game event set to kick off on April 21 at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm BST.
As first reported by VGC in February, at the end ofBlack Ops Cold WarandWarzoneSeason 2, the battle royale gamewill finally transition to its new map.
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It’s likely that nuclear warheads recently uncovered on Warzone’s map will be used to trigger the map revamp, similar to howFortnite used an in-game event to transition to Chapter 2.
https://twitter.com/CallofDuty/status/1382015773741289483
Influencers have also startedreceivingpromotional materials related to the in-game event, with a message referencing Verdank’s zombies invasion reading: “Once the hostiles reach here, we levee a guess that Verdansk is all but gone to the damned.”
Footage of the new map was recently revealed in a leaked live-action advert forWarzone Season 3, which appeared to confirm that the updated battleground will be an evolution of Verdansk, rather than an entirely fresh design.
The footage shows Cold War-era landmarks replacing Verdansk’s own points of interest, including an in-construction Stadium and an aqueduct replacing the Dam. Airport, TV Station and Downtown can also be spotted with a 1980s makeover.
However, some new locations can also be seen, such as a mineshaft area and what appears to be the Duga-2 Radar Array featured in Black Ops Cold War’s Ashes to Ashes campaign mission.
April 21st@CallofDuty👀pic.twitter.com/tOHA7NntUM
Further reading
While kicking off on April 21, the activities leading to the updated map’s reveal will culminate in an explosive in-game event on April 22, designed to narratively transition Warzone from theModern Warfareera to a Cold War era setting more in line with the most recent premium series release.
Activisionissued the latest ina series Warzone ban waveson Monday, with developerRaven Softwaretweetingthat 30,000 more player accounts had been banned from the game.
The publisher also confirmed some of this week’sBlack Ops Cold War and Warzone updatesahead of the launch of Season 3. Thursday’s Black Ops Cold War update will introduce a new version of Gun Game called Blueprint Gun Game, which sees players cycling through 20 different weapon blueprints.
A Black Ops Cold War and Warzone double XP weekend will then launch the following day, offering double XP, double Weapon XP, and double Battle Pass XP. The event is scheduled to begin at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST on April 16 and run for 72 hours until April 19.
This year’s new Call of Duty game will be led bySledgehammer Gamesand set during World War 2, according to reports VGC understands to be accurate.
Call of Duty WW2: Vanguardis expected to return to the Modern Warfare 2019 engine, ‘IW8’, which also powers Warzone, after last year’s Cold War switched to an upgraded version ofTreyarch’sBlack Ops 4technology.
The game will likely share weapons and progression with Warzone, but it’s unclear how deep the integration with the battle royale title will go, due to both scheduling issues and the significant change in time setting.
With Sledgehammer’s premium game due out later this year, Warzone likely won’t see a similar map revamp to coincide with the upcoming game until at least 2022, if at all.
