THE latest Call of Duty update will add a deadly new mechanic to the game’s Warzone mode, according to rumours.
US publisher Activision is said to be working on a new map for the battle royale shooter, and apparently it will feature a location that pumps deadly radiation onto the battlefield.
The location – a chemical weapons lab – will have an “environmental” effect that players will have to be wary of, according to one popular leaker.
ModernWarzone, a Twitter account with 200,000 followers that regularly shares titbits about Call of Duty (CoD), revealed the changes last week.
“The next #Warzone map will have a location/POI called Chemical labs,” they wrote on January 30.
“From what I’ve seen there seems to be some sort of environmental affect near this location.
“Unsure if it’s radiation, or some other mechanic,” they added. “Could be scrapped by now as well.”
Rumours that Activision and developer Raven Software are working on a new, large-scale Warzone map have circulated for months.
The game’s most recent map, Rebirth Island, launched in December.
However, the Soviet base is considerably smaller than Warzone’s only other map, Verdansk, which shipped with the game in March, 2020.
It’s now coming up to a year since that map landed, so a replacement in the coming weeks seems likely – especially considering that a new Call of Duty game drops roughly every 12 months.
Various leaks and whispers appear to confirm as much, hinting at a March 2021 release date.
It’s not clear where ModernWarzone got their information from, so take the rumours with a pinch of salt for now.
We likely won’t know anything concrete about a new Warzone map until we hear something directly from Activision.
The news comes hot on the heels of the release of Season One: The first major update for the latest Call of Duty game, Black Ops Cold War.
Released December 16, it merged Cold War – which hit shelves in November – with Call of Duty’s free-to-play battle royale game mode, Warzone.
Players’ progression and stats now synchronise across both titles.
In a blog post, Treyarch excitedly talked Season One up as the “largest free content drop in Black Ops history”.
