Most of the fun stuff headed to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone in Season 6 isn’t dropping until mid-October when ‘The Haunting’ event begins. The midseason update will overhaul multiplayer and Battle Royale maps giving them a Halloween theme including zombies, colorful decorations and night versions of several different maps.
Season 6, which is also the final season of Modern Warfare II before the release of Modern Warfare III in November, will also see a steady trickle of spooky Operators including Skeletor, Ash from the Evil Dead and Diablo IV characters Inarius and Lilith, to name a few.
So what’s new in Season 6 before all of this Halloween content drops? Let’s take a look.
Four New Maps
I spent many hours yesterday testing out the four new maps that were released in Modern Warfare II yesterday, bringing the total map count in the game up to 46, 8 shy of the total released for Modern Warfare 2019, though some of those maps were released after official support for the game ended.
The new maps include two new Gunfight maps and two new 6v6 core maps. The Gunfight maps are Fight and King. Fight is a brand new map that features both multilevel interior areas and a concrete yard. It’s very non-linear, with plenty of hiding spots, sniping lanes and so forth. It’s one of the more interesting Gunfight maps released in Modern Warfare II and should make for plenty of intense 2v2 (and 3v3 if they’d add that back) engagements. Here’s the overhead view:
King is a remastered version of the 2019 Gunfight map that takes the rather clean, bright warehouse and gives it a post-apocalyptic overhaul. The three-lane map is now overgrown with moss and vines. It looks like part of a stage from The Last Of Us. It plays almost identically to the original map, though it feels as though they might have widened it a bit. This was one of the best maps from the previous game, and I hope they continue to bring back more of those. Remastered versions of maps like Docks and Stack would be terrific.
The new 6v6 maps include Koro Village, a remake of the classic map Toujane from Call Of Duty 2, before the franchise left WWII and became “Modern Warfare.” This map is terrific and really unlike anything we normally see in Call Of Duty these days. It’s a mid-sized map that feels a bit bigger than it actually is simply due to all the rooftops. Here’s the overhead view:
You can enter some but not all of these buildings, so much of the time exchanges take place across rooftops or in the streets and alleyways.
Both Koro Village and the brand new map La Casa work great for objective modes like Search & Destroy and Cyber Attack, which is why I’m very happy that Infinity Ward didn’t just include 24/7 playlists for both maps, but an Objective Moshpit as well. For Objective-focused players like myself and my CoD squad, it’s nice to be able to get a mix of these modes and not just play TDM and Kill Confirmed on the new maps.
Side-note: Infinity Ward, why is map-voting still not a thing in Quick Play and Hardcore? Why? This would make the game so much better. This is a far more important feature than the recently added ‘Play Again With Team’. It gets frustrating when we have to constantly back out whenever the atrocious night map Black Gold pops up (among other nearly-as-bad maps like Santa Sena). Side-side-note: Black Gold actually gives some players migraines. There should be an accessibility setting that turns night vision maps off entirely. Side-side-side-note, none of 2019’s night vision maps caused this as far as I can tell. This is unique to Black Gold.
In any case, La Casa is also a fun map though I like it less than Koro Village. It’s also quite small, but the two buildings on either side of the courtyard and pond make it feel not just small but cramped to some degree. This map could flow better if it was a little less busy. But it’s still fun and I appreciate these smaller maps and wish that Infinity Ward would release more of them, including smaller versions of big maps like Taraq, Museum and so forth. Treyarch did this with Cold War when they introduced “Strike” versions of Miami and a handful of other maps. Unsurprisingly, these versions were wildly more popular!
In any case, more small maps like this would be super!
New Weapons
I’ve already written about all the weapon changes in the Season 6 patch notes, but now I’ve also had time to play with the two new guns introduced this season, and they’re both a lot of fun and probably a bit over-powered. Enjoy them both before they’re invariably nerfed!
The TR-76 Geist is a bullpup assault rifle with .762 ammunition that hits hard with very little recoil (though this depends on how you kit it out and tune it). It’s a very satisfying gun to shoot and I leveled up in no time thanks to its stopping power and accuracy. I suspect this will quickly become a favorite in both Modern Warfare II and Warzone. (Edit, it appears both new guns are now top picks in Warzone, replacing the recently-nerfed Kastov 762, one of my favorite guns since launch).
As you can see, the Geist looks a little bit like the recently added Tempus Razorback:
The ISO 9mm is a super fast, super deadly SMG and a great option to run as a secondary or sniper support. It’s zippy and steady and while I wouldn’t recommend it at longer ranges, in close quarters this thing is deadly as hell thanks to its maneuverability and close-range damage and accuracy.
The Battle Pass
Beyond new maps and weapons, the Season 6 Battle Pass is a curious new entry in the series featuring the comic book antihero Spawn alongside some of the villains from the Todd McFarlane comics like Creepy Clown and the Violator. It’s a totally over-the-top Battle Pass that is sure to make the “we want more mil-sim” Call Of Duty fans angry (outside of the excellent Al Simmons Tier 1 skin which is one of the best mil-sim skins so far) and fans of the outlandish, zany skins happy.
Frankly, I find the Spawn crossover baffling simply because Spawn is hardly culturally relevant anymore. One of the younger guys we game with regularly had never heard of him, though everyone in my age-bracket had. I still have my Spawn #1 comic. These were some of my favorite comic books as a kid, but I’m 42 now and I never expected Spawn to suddenly be in the spotlight in Call Of Duty, that’s for sure. I dig it, but I’m surprised.
The Black Cell returns and for $30 you can get your hands on variant Operator skins, Weapon Blueprints and easier access to the non-linear Battle Pass tiers. You also get a new mecha-dog and the new Operator V4L3RIA and some COD points.
As far as final Battle Passes go, Modern Warfare II is certainly going out with a bang. Speaking of which, the Battle Pass includes a new smoke grenade skin that makes smoke turn black, while the BlackCell variant emits red smoke that looks like a snake. It’s neat but definitely on the goofy side. (I admit, I generally prefer the mil-sim Operators and 90% of the time I equip the “realism” skins, but I also enjoy the goofy stuff because it’s just a stupid game and we might as well shoot bunnies and kitties kitted out like an orangutan!)
Not Much New In Warzone
Warzone has seen a handful of minor changes but nothing really significant will go down in the Battle Royale mode until The Haunting, so I’ll save commentary for the midseason update.
Ranked
Ranked has seen virtually no changes in either Warzone or Multiplayer which is a little disappointing. It would be fun to have a couple more weapons to choose from, or maybe replace the X12 pistol with the 9mm Daemon just to spice things up. I’d also like to see new maps added to MP Ranked rotations and the truly atrocious El Asilo Control removed and burned in the fiery pits of hell. I still think Headquarters could be a good Ranked mode, or something like Prisoner Rescue. I love Ranked but I get tired of Control, Hardpoint and S&D only, especially since it feels like we mostly get stuck with Control and Hardpoint. Why not add S&D to Zarqwa Hydroelectric?
Performance And Verdict
Overall, performance with the new update seems solid. Often these big seasonal updates create all kinds of bugs and instability but I’ve noticed almost nothing. Some glitchy Battle Pass stuff but nothing that didn’t resolve on its own. The biggest bug I’ve encountered personally is that two of my squadmates lost all their SR in Ranked. One was at Platinum I and went back to Bronze 1. The other was at Gold II and went down to Bronze I. I was at Gold II and dropped to Silver II which is how it should be. (This is in Warzone Ranked, by the way, which we only started playing at the end of last season).
Other than that it’s been smooth sailing and a fun new update with lots more to come as All Hallow’s Eve approaches.
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