Verdansk back in Warzone Season 5? Be careful what you wish for
ActivisionWarzone players and content creators alike have been calling for Verdansk to return in Season 5 so they can play it one last time before Warzone 2. However, there are some things to consider before demanding Verdansk’s return.
The idea of Verdansk brings back fond memories for many Warzone players. Having a ton of friends online, dropping into this sprawling landscape, and fighting to be the last team standing is how many spent 2020.
However, fatigue eventually set in, and players were desperate for a new map. Caldera finally arrived in December 2021, but many were disappointed with the new offering and called for Verdansk to return.
Warzone 2.0 arrives later in 2022, and social media has been flooded with players demanding Verdansk’s return in Season 5 as a final send-off before Warzone 2 arrives.
Regardless of your thoughts on Caldera, there are some things to consider before demanding that Raven Software bring back the OG map.
Take off the rose-tinted glasses
There’s no denying that Verdansk is a huge reason for Warzone’s success, and almost every player has fond memories of dropping Superstore while stuck inside. While Caldera isn’t everything that players wanted, it fixed a ton of Verdansk’s issues.
On top of its muted color palette that players often complained about, stairways, tall buildings, and wide-open spaces with little-to-no cover infested Verdansk. Downtown had a team on the roof of almost every building, making the area a deathtrap for anyone passing through.
Caldera, on the other hand, has fewer opportunities for players to camp inside buildings. There are no skyscrapers with 30-odd floors to climb, nor are there buildings like the ATC with only an elevator to reach the top.
This wasn’t as much of an issue when Modern Warfare weapons were the meta, but Vanguard guns are a different story. Long-range beamers like the NZ-41 would be a nightmare on Verdansk, as players could effortlessly beam enemies across the map. This would force players inside, and a ton of fights would be a stalemate as rooftop campers would have every option covered.
Redeploy Balloons could be the saving grace here though. Players could fly across the map to avoid rooftop campers raining hell from above, and if the balloons could fling players high enough to reach the top of the skyscrapers, then this might help to alleviate the camping problem.
Think of the bugs
Warzone’s developers have already admitted that the game is “bloated,” which makes it difficult for them to find bugs and patch them quickly. While Fortune’s Keep had a relatively smooth launch, there’s no guarantee that Verdansk would return without issue.
Considering that there’s rumored to be no Season 6, this would only give the developers one season to fix any problems. And if it does take a season to get Verdansk to a place where players are happy, then they’ll most likely have moved onto Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 by the time it arrives.
Nobody wants the last few weeks of Warzone to be frustrating due to a ton of bugs and under-the-map glitches, and replacing Caldera with Verdansk could open up a Pandora’s Box-worth of issues.
Your hard drive would suffer
Warzone’s Creative Lead Josh Bridges explained that they want to add map rotation between Verdansk and Caldera, but “there’s a technical problem.”
“The install and reinstall sizes are f***ing crazy. It’s insane,” Bridges explained. “If we pulled out Caldera and said, ‘okay, we’re gonna drop in Verdansk,’ this could be essentially like redownloading the size of Warzone.”
They explained that every time they dropped a large update, they actually lost players. He explained that players would be like “I don’t wanna redownload this — uninstall.”
Of course, many players have said that loads of their friends who had quit would return for Verdansk. However, many players would see a 100 GB update and avoid it entirely.
While some might not mind a “f***ing crazy” download, this would be a serious issue for players with limited hard drive space.
It’s entirely possible that players want to recapture the feeling of playing Verdansk, rather than Verdansk itself. While I’m sure plenty of OG players will be delighted to see the map return, if you’re one of the players hounding Raven Software to bring the original map back, it’s worth having a think about what this could mean for the game.
You shouldn’t have to wait long before there’s a new map to play in any case, as Warzone 2’s leaked map is set to feature plenty of POIs from the original Modern Warfare 2.
Image Credit: Activision