Call of Duty: Warzone's classic Verdansk map returning next year
As Season 1 begins after Black Ops 6 release.
The classic Verdansk map will return to Call of Duty Warzone next year.
Verdansk is the battle royale's original map that's no longer playable. But, following in the footsteps of Fortnite's own OG map return, it will be back in spring 2025.
The return of the map has been rumoured for some time, but Activision officially confirmed the news in last night's Call of Duty: Next livestream.
It's unclear if Verdansk will be altered in any way or return exactly as fans remember. Indeed, Amos Hodge, associate creative director at Raven Studios, previously said: "Players don't know it, but current day Verdansk, they'll never play in that state again. Current day Verdansk is gone and it's not coming back."
The timing of the map's return is also intriguing. While no specific date has been given, Warzone originally launched on 10th March 2020 so could this be part of a five year anniversary celebration?
News of Verdansk's return came alongside fresh details on the next map coming to the game in Season 1.
Area 99 is Treyarch's new Resurgence map for Warzone, described as "the birthplace of Nuketown". It includes ten points of interest, including a central Reactor and areas like Manufacturing, Loading Bay, and Nuketown Shipping.
Nuketown (which sounds very Fallout-esque) is a popular recurring map in the Call of Duty series that, as the name suggests, was a nuclear test site.
Warzone Season 1 will launch following the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on 25th October.
You can watch the full Call of Duty: Next stream in the video below.
The return of the original map in rival battle royale Fortnite proved extremely successful, with Epic confirming it will return again this year. It's likely this refers to the now-permanent Fortnite Reload mode, which offers a condensed version of the classic Chapter 1 Island, though a much-discussed leak suggests a similar OG event will take pace for Fortnite's Chapter 2 iteration later in 2024.
The original battle royale PUBG also saw its first map return earlier this year.