Josh Bridge, the Call of Duty: Warzone live operations lead at Raven Software, recently sat down for an interview with TeeP and got asked if there were any plans for a map rotation anytime soon. The answer was simultaneously obvious and surprisingly straightforward, and it plainly described the amount of technical debt that COD developers need to deal with in order to support Warzone.
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The “install and reinstall sizes are f****g crazy,” said Bridge while talking to TeeP, explaining that installation size problems are the main reason why there aren’t multiple rotating maps present in Warzone at any given moment. Content updates such as the recent revamp of Rebirth Island in Warzone are the developers’ current way of dealing with players map fatigue, but since much of the player base is still stuck with last-gen 500 GB consoles, Bridge says that Raven needs to keep them in mind and attempt to keep the installation size as low as possible.
The technology that is used to run and maintain Warzone was initially designed for medium-scale objective-based multiplayer matches from Modern Warfare, and the visual fidelity and data requirements of the levels reflect this choice. Even the now-removed Verdansk map for Warzone cannot be added as an optional alternative to the current Caldera level. As Bridge explained it, “Verdansk was never authored with the idea that 180 weapons were going to be added to it,” which means that the roster of available content is a problem for developers.
Bridge did say, however, that introducing map rotation is a long-term goal for Warzone, even if it isn’t possible to implement this feature at this time. This could be interpreted as a potential design goal for the leaked Call of Duty: Warzone 2, as Activision and its Call of Duty developers are bound to be looking at ways to future-proof the Warzone sequel properly, so that it can support an even more comprehensive post-launch content schedule.
It’s clear that simply throwing more maps into the mix wouldn’t be a good decision, especially if Warzone wants to keep its place among the best battle royales of 2022. Bridge himself admitted that the game loses players whenever there’s a big new update, and those have been a problem for years. Keeping all the above in mind, then, it doesn’t seem like these issues will be resolved until Warzone 2 comes out, whenever that might be.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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