CoD Warzone’s New Pacific Map May Fix Some of Verdansk’s Biggest Problems

While the recent Call of Duty: Vanguard showcase was supposed to focus on the upcoming game’s multiplayer modes (and perhaps help distract people from Activision Blizzard’s ongoing harassment lawsuit and the fallout of the accusations made in that lawsuit), it’s hardly a surprise that most Call of Duty fans are instead focused on the brief glimpse of Warzone‘s new Pacific map that we got during the Vanguard event.

We don’t know everything about this new map yet, but we do know that it is designed to resemble a Pacific island, will of course be tied into Vanguard‘s WW2 storyline in some way, and will not launch with Vanguard but rather be available sometime shortly thereafter. Obviously, that leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions regarding the map and what it means for the future of Warzone.

Having said that, we have a pretty good idea about his new map will likely address the biggest issues with Warzone‘s Verdansk and Verdansk ’84 maps. Here are just a few ways that this upcoming Pacific battlefield will help breathe life new life into the absurdly popular battle royale.

Warzone’s Pacific Map Seems To Offer More Cloud Coverage and Less Lens Flare Interference

One of Verdansk’s biggest (and strangest) problems has always been the map’s use of lens flare effects and how those effects often make it unnecessarily difficult to spot enemies (especially snipers). The Warzone team has responded to these concerns in the past with relatively minor updates, but it seems like it was always going to be difficult for them to make substantial changes to the existing map/engine.

While we may be making too much out of the various clouds we saw over Warzone‘s new Pacific map, it really does seem like those clouds could offer a more organic way to at least reduce the amount of lens flare caused by the battle royale’s digital sun. At the very least, Warzone‘s Rebirth Island area featured much-improved lighting effects, so this Pacific map should be at least as good as that was.

Warzone’s Pacific Map Should Result In More Events/Updates

There was a strange moment during the Warzone Pacific map reveal when Creative Director Amos Hodge mentioned that his new map “really opens the doors to how we can craft the narratives and events.” Unfortunately, Hodge did not expand on how this new map will actually do just that.

However, it’s nice to hear that the Warzone team is already focused on such updates. Warzone is one of the worst battle royale games in the world in terms of providing consistent and compelling content updates, so if there’s any way that this new map will make those updates a little more common, then it’s already a big win for the battle royale’s fans.

Warzone’s Pacific Map Looks Like it Will Improve Verdansk’s Open Spaces

Generally speaking, you don’t want to get caught in one of Verdansk’s many open spaces for too long. They’re one of the battle royale’s most consistent and prevalent death traps, and they honestly seem to exist mostly as a practical way to connect the map’s various landmark locations.

Interestingly, even a brief glimpse at this new Pacific map seems to suggest that it will at least partially address that particular design shortcoming. At the very least, the Pacific map’s abundance of trees and other natural cover opportunities should offer more places to hide if you do happen to be caught out in the wild for too long.

Warzone’s Pacific Map is Already More Colorful and “Alive” Than Verdansk

We didn’t need to see much of Warzone‘s new Pacific map to immediately appreciate that it’s significantly more colorful and “alive” than Verdansk ever was.

There’s an argument to be had regarding whether or not that’s a big deal from a gameplay perspective, but given how dark, depressing, bleak, and generally visually unimpressive Warzone‘s Verdansk map has been so far, it’s nice to know that the Warzone team seems to have remembered that brown and grey are, in fact, not the only available color options.

Warzone’s Pacific Map Size Suggests Verdansk’s Best Features Will Survive the Transition

The Call of Duty blog suggests that Warzone‘s new Pacific map will be “roughly the size of Verdansk” and will benefit from what the developers have learned “from the community over nearly two years.” It remains to be seen what the second part of that statement will mean, but the first part seems to suggest that the Warzone team is well aware of what they got right the first time.

Verdansk’s problem has never been the size of its map (which was honestly nearly perfect right from the start) but rather the fact that so many players have just figured it out at this point. It’s encouraging to know that they’re not trying to make everything bigger but rather emphasize making everything feel different and new.