The recent confirmation that Verdansk is set to return toCall of Duty: Warzonecaught the attention of so many, with the map being the defining original experience that introduced players to the game in 2020. The iconic reputation and nostalgia factor of Verdansk has led to a longstanding desire for a faithful return of the map toWarzone, with Activision finally sharing that Verdansk will return as a way to mark the five-year anniversary ofWarzone’s initial release.
While a lot of excitement surrounds Verdansk’s upcoming return toCall of Duty: Warzoneon April 3, there is still an extreme amount of pressure for the event to provide a new surge of sustained popularity for the battle royale title. And even with Verdansk’s impending return creating a lot of buzz, some fans are already quite vocal about how the gameplay changes of modernWarzonecompared to the original Verdansk era might make the map’s return a lot less impactful and faithful than it otherwise could be.
Warzone May Have Changed Too Much For Verdansk’s Return To Have the Desired Impact
Many long-time players ofWarzonepoint towards the game’s removal of Verdansk to make way for the Caldera map in late 2021 as a real dividing moment for the title, with this being the first major example of the overhauls thatWarzonewould go on to receive to match the break-neck changes ofCall of Duty’s annual releases. Not only didsubsequent games necessitate new maps forWarzone, but they also introduced massive overhauls to the title’s core mechanics that are very hard to ignore.
Call of Duty: Warzonehas featured many core maps over the years, including Verdansk, Caldera, Urzikstan, Al Mazrah, and a range of smaller Rebirth experiences.
Activision has been well aware of the nostalgia and popularity that exists around Verdansk for some time now, with the map even being briefly re-imagined asVerdansk ‘84 following the high-profile destruction event for the map in 2021. With almost four years having passed since the complete removal of Verdansk fromWarzone, fans are more than ready to finally re-experience the map, although many players have already pointed out how things like the game engine, movement, and shooting mechanics of modernWarzonemight be a huge limitation in terms of how reflective the upcoming Verdansk can be of the original.
Warzonevery famously re-branded itself asWarzone 2.0in 2022and, while this new name did not last for long,Warzone 2.0introduced a slower revamped movement system to the title that was a far-cry away from the high-octane chaos of the movement that defined a lot of Verdansk’s best moments. More recently,Black Ops 6’s divisive omni-movement system has also found a place inWarzone, with many fans wondering how this may also impact the feel of Verdansk’s return.
Verdansk Alone Might Not Be Enough To Secure Warzone’s Future
Aside from this, it seems clear that many fans want Verdansk’s return to be as close to 2019’sModern Warfareas possible in terms of things like the weapons, perks, and vehicles available to players, yet it seems unlikely that Activision would create such a disconnected experience fromthe current offerings ofBlack Ops 6. When considering other major gameplay elements like different in-game operators and audio systems, the core skeleton of modernWarzonemay be too different to give Verdansk’s return the nostalgic star power that it could otherwise create.
It has even been reported thatthe future ofCall of Duty: Warzonewill be decided by the success of Verdansk’s return, with a lackluster performance for the map potentially spelling the end for any ongoing support of the game. The difference in core mechanics between modernWarzoneand the era that made Verdansk so successful could be a big barrier to the map’s potential success, so it will be interesting to see how fans respond to its return.
