Warzone players call out fatal map design flaw on Urzikstan

Warzone players have spent the past couple days questioning why the developers failed to create a primary hot drop on the battle royale’s latest map Urzikstan.

Raven Software made a concerted effort to improve Warzone’s pacing over the last several months. Compared to the previous map, Al Mazrah, Urzikstan is 20 percent smaller, has faster match times at around 20 minutes, and the storm closes in faster.

Despite the changes making a significant difference, Warzone players still aren’t satisfied with the latest battle royale map’s pace at the start of a match.

Warzone players slam lack of ‘hot drops’ on Urzikstan

On Jan. 15, Warzone streamer FaZe Swagg complained about the map. “Current map has no hot drops,” he wrote on X. “I feel nothing when I drop except emptiness until I see a bounty. Up the loot in certain places. I need a superstore vibe.”

Some of the main POIs on Urzikstan, like Cargo, Low Town, and Old Town, have plenty of players land there, but there isn’t one primary spot that’s guaranteed to have a lot of players.

Warzone‘s latest map only supports 100 players instead of 150, which could contribute to why community members feel like there aren’t as many enemies that land near them at the start of a match. But Swagg argued that the problem actually stems from Urzikstan not being developed to have a place to support that.

Long before the streamer made his claim, Raven Software senior producer Chase Williams and lead-level designer Christopher Foster provided a behind-the-scenes look at Urzikstan’s development process, adding context to the complaint.

“The core MP learnings are something we use everywhere across the map, so every single building is a little MP map,” Foster said. “We have no more than five to 10 seconds of sprinting without something to do.”

Creating every POI on Urzikstan equally as a mini multiplayer map has benefits, since players can get into gunfights wherever they decide to land. But the lack of one POI that stands out apart from the rest has community members questioning Raven’s design choices.