Call of Duty: Warzone's Verdansk '84 gets new satellite crash sites with Season 4

As well as a new red door fast-travel system.

News by Wesley Yin-Poole Former Editor-in-Chief

Updated on June 14, 2021

Call of Duty: Warzone Season 4 kicks off this week, and brings with it new points of interest to the map.

Satellite crash sites will be plainly visible in Verdansk '84, with the debris and impact on the landscape "significant", Activision said in a blog post. These sites offer new opportunities for cover, and the satellites themselves can also be secured.

You can interact with the Sat-Links found in these areas to work toward receiving permanent rewards in the Ground Fall event at the beginning of the season. You can also obtain items to use during the match, such as killstreaks, vehicles, and field upgrades.

Also new are red doors dotted around Verdansk. Activision didn't reveal much about them, but it seems reasonable to assume they allow you to teleport across the map. In April, we reported on the emergence of a Warzone survey that reportedly mentioned a new fast-travel system via "red doors". This will be that, then.

The Red Door was the name of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's leaked internal alpha, which emerged in July. We didn't know it at the time, but red doors would go on to play a key role in the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War campaign.

THERE MAY BE SPOILERS AHEAD.

In that campaign, red doors appeared in the trippy mission Break on Through. Here, you experience a flashback to Vietnam 1968 and, under the influence of CIA operative Adler, try to reach a bunker via a red door. There's even an achievement tied to the red door and what you do with it.

You might have noticed a red door appear at the end of the cutscene that played for those who took part in Warzone's The Destruction of Verdansk Part 2 limited-time event (the video is below). As the door opens and the camera flies through, we see numbers emerge from the light, and hear Stitch say: "You have no idea what's coming."

The red doors are of course a gameplay and narrative connection between Cold War and Warzone. Remember, Verdansk '84 is a "flashback" mission, which explains how it can get away with all this stuff.

Story wise, on 26th June 1984 a metal-faced Perseus agent called Jackal (who is also one of three brand new operators coming with Season 4) breaches a CIA Ground Station compound in South Africa, reaches the control room, and forces a hostage to de-orbit two CIA satellites at specific points in Verdansk and Algeria. These satellites then hurtle down to earth.

One of the satellites is downed deep in an Algerian desert. Adler, fresh from his rescue by Frank Woods in the previous season, leads a task force that investigates this crash site. The other satellite crashes down onto Verdansk. The set-up is any operator across the world is a possible Perseus sleeper cell.

Meanwhile, Season 4 brings a change of Gulag - it's now a mock-up of the classic map Hijacked, which replaces the current Standoff.

"This truncated version features a plywood re-creation of the yacht's central area, a prime location for important objectives such as a Domination flag in Multiplayer, which has the same location as the Overtime flag spawn during a Gulag duel," reads the official blurb.

"No need to worry about rough waters here, although you may need to avoid hitting the rocks being thrown from the balconies during your fight for survival."

Elsewhere, Warzone gets a new vehicle: the Dirt Bike from Black Ops Cold War. It becomes the new fastest vehicle in Warzone, and has some unique handling properties, such as wheel traction, sliding, drifting and vehicle leaning.

"With an excellent turning radius, carry yourself and a companion across the concrete jungle, up goat trails, and down rock-filled ravines with ease," Activision said. "Deft and nimble, this new option to the Warzone ground transportation fleet is ready to compete with the ATV in terms of furious off-road action."

The Nakatomi Tower introduced with the recent '80s action movie hero event is now referred to as Downtown Tower. The vault is now cleared of valuables, but "remains a vast and strategically valuable location to dominate your enemies from", Activision said.

"Although it may be under new management, expect the meta tactics you learned during the '80s Action Heroes event to come in handy."

Two new game modes are coming to Warzone: Verdansk Resurgence Mini at launch (this is inspired by Rebirth Island's popular Resurgence Mini mode), and then, mid-season, Verdansk gets its first ever objective-based mode.

In Payload, you and 39 other operators drop in to escort two caravans of vehicles through a series of checkpoints or sabotage the mission. You build or destroy barriers and purchase buildings to aid in your squad's mission. Collect contracts you find around Verdansk, as they help lead to success.

There are five new weapons coming to Warzone in Season 4: the MG 82 LMG, the C58 assault rifle, the Nail Gun SMG (a 1980s precursor to the variant seen in the futuristic Black Ops 3), the OTs 9 SMG, and the mace melee weapon. The baseball bat from Cold War is also coming to Warzone, as is the hand cannon scorestreak.

Season Four goes live in Warzone following an update scheduled for 5am UK time on 17th June.

Expect it to weigh in at 11.4-14.6GB for those who own the free-to-play Warzone and are current on the latest updates on either or both games. The Warzone download is a larger file size due to the optimisation of data, Activision said.

PlayStation 5: 11GB
PlayStation 4: 11GB
Xbox Series X / Xbox Series S: 11.2GB
Xbox One: 11.2GB
PC: 12.3GB (Warzone only) / 13.5GB (Warzone and Modern Warfare)

PC users also need 27.1-28.3GB of additional space on their hard-drive for the patch copying process. This is only temporary space that is reclaimed upon completion of the patch installation and is not an additional download, Activision said.

Also of note: following the launch of Season Four, Warzone and Modern Warfare console players have the option to download a new high-res texture pack on 22nd June.

This adds more high-definition textures to the game, which is "optimal" for those running the game at higher resolutions such as 1440p and 4K.

The high-res texture pack has an approximate download size of 7.2-7.6GB, depending on the console.