Call of Duty: Warzone’s big, in-game nuke event is coming soon and will refresh Verdansk map

Call of Duty: Warzone

The official Call of Duty account has teased a big event coming to Warzone next week.

“The end is near…” says the tweet, with the event due on 21 April at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 8pm BST.

The online battle royale game is set to transition to a new map soon, which the tweet is teasing.

Plans for the new map were already set in motion with the arrival of zombies on the current Verdansk map as part of season two of the game’s content. 

Those zombies have gradually spread around the map as the season reaches its climax. The containment pool is set to fail and the whole area will have to be nuked – a convenient way to refresh the map.

https://twitter.com/CallofDuty/status/1382015773741289483?s=20

This has already been spoiled as some gamers accidentally saw nukes being dropped on the map weeks ago – they launch and fall but without sound or visual effects. Awkward.

A new map will take the place of Verdansk and, while not officially revealed, leaks have suggested it will take on a 1980s appearance in-line with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

Cold War-era landmarks have been spotted in the leaks and familiar spots have been given a 1980s twist, suggesting this will be more of an evolution than a totally new map.

There’s precedence for this sort of event as mastered by Fortnite. Epic have transitioned between seasons with landmark events to retain player interest, for example the most recent season six began with a new single player mission to usher in a new era.

Sadly Warzone is plagued with cheating PC players. Publisher Activision recently banned another 60,000 accounts, making a total of 300,000 permanently banned accounts since the game launched in March 2020.

A recent blog post outlines their anti-cheat programme, but the new map will surely attract a whole host of new players to the game.

Developer Treyarch have also announced this weekend there will be Double XP, Double Weapon XP and Double Battle Pass XP to get us set up for the new event, so prepare for havoc.