Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be the latest in a long line of annual COD titles, but fans hope it won’t follow too far in MW3’s footsteps.
Modern Warfare 3 (2023) is something of a controversial Call of Duty title. While initially, leaks suggested that MW3 was set to be an expansion to the previous year’s MW2 reboot, it ended up being a full priced title of its own.
Initially, fans praised the game’s movement, remastered map roster, and even its open-world take on Zombies. However, as with many COD titles, over the months, fans have become increasingly jaded with the game.
Now, as Black Ops 6 is fast approaching, some users are calling on Treyarch’s title to stay well clear of one of MW3’s most infamous additions.
No Event Map Variants in Black Ops 6
Black Ops 6 fans hope the game never features event-specific maps, much like MW3’s Vortex event offerings.
Over on the Modern Warfare 3 subreddit, a popular new post calls on Treyarch to avoid making the same mistakes as Sledgehammer Games before it.
For those unaware, as part of a MW3 event in January 2024, a new Vortex event added five new maps to the game. Each map was actually a remake of an existing in-game map, given a makeover to fit the event theme.
For example, Quarry became Satan’s Quarry, a map similar in structure to the original but with some added fire and brimstone to give it a Hell-like feel.
In addition, players could experience the new Vortex mode on Sporeyard (Scrapyard), Tetanus (Rust), Airborne (Terminal), and Skidgrow (Skidrow).
These maps were initially a nice change of pace, particularly as they were only available in the Vortex playlist. However, on April 24, Sledgehammer Games officially added all the map variants to standard Quickplay matchmaking.
The Issue With Map Variants
The biggest complaint that fans have with this change is that there are now two different variations of the same map in the Quickplay roster.
This means that it’s far more likely to be playing on these specific maps than any of the other arenas. Sometimes players have even found that the pre-game Map Vote has them picking between one of the base maps and its Vortex variant, therefore removing the point of voting.
In addition, Call of Duty fans also report that maps such as Satan’s Quarry and Sporeyard have far worse visibility than their regular variants. And if there’s one thing that COD players love to complain about, it’s poor visibility.
Should Black Ops 6 opt to give any of its Multiplayer maps a makeover in future seasons, Treyarch should be careful to limit where they end up.
After all, most fans wouldn’t have issue with the maps being part of their own playlist, or simply available in special event modes. But it seems they very much have a problem with them appearing in standard matchmaking.