All battle royale games have that iconic map, and Verdansk was just that for Call of Duty: Warzone—the cityscape battlefield was the title’s only major map until Vanguard came along. With the release of Vanguard, Verdansk was replaced by Caldera.
The change meant adaptation for players, and with time, Warzone fans also grew to love Caldera and its tropical POIs. It’s relatively hard to replace the original, but CoD fans may find themselves wishing for a dose of nostalgia.
Though having both maps in the game sounds ideal, the massive file size of Warzone makes it infeasible. Bringing back the map would mean a gigantic patch for the players, a sore sight for fans with a slower internet connection.
So, there’s no set date for a long-awaited Verdansk return to Warzone.
In an interview with former CoD pro and streamer TeePee, CoD’s live operations lead, Josh Bridge, explained that download sizes are the issue with bringing maps back into Warzone.
“So there’s a technical problem,” Bridge said. “The install and reinstall sizes [are] fucking crazy. If we pulled out Caldera and said OK, we’re going to drop in Verdansk—this could mean redownloading the size of Warzone. And every time we’ve done that, we lose players.”
Verdansk likely won’t be coming back to Warzone. It could potentially return in Warzone 2.0 sometime down the line, albeit very unlikely, but It is confirmed to return in Warzone Mobile.
Warzone Mobile’s default de facto map at launch will be Verdansk. If players want to return to Superstore or any of Verdansk’s other points of interest, Warzone Mobile will be the place to play it in 2023.