Call of Duty Warzone is receiving several updates that come along with the arrival of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Season One which means the new Rebirth Island map is now available but it will only cater to 40 players per match. While unification with Black Ops Cold War will alter Warzone’s gameplay considerably, so to will the fact that this new map is much tinier than the existing Verdansk map.
Though Warzone is just less than a year old and developed by Infinity Ward, there was some controversy prior to the launch of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War on just how much support the title would receive once the mainline game developed by Treyarch was launched.
However, Treyarch and Activision have made absolutely clear that the free to play battle royale is here to stay and will continue to transform along with the new title just as it has with Modern Warfare back in 2019.
In an announcement regarding Black Ops Cold War and Warzone’s Season One, the developers explained how the new Rebirth Island map will play, detailing that the small map will only cater to 40 players per match to force intense close-quarter battles.
There will also be an upcoming Rebirth Island event which features 16 new challenges for players to gather rewards as well as two new Gulags – one for Rebirth Island and another for Verdansk. Players will also be receiving access to over 30 new guns, all of which come from Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War.
The maximum of only 40 players battling it out on Rebirth Island may be a bit frustrating to Warzone players when the Verdansk map supported 150 players. However, Rebirth Island was deliberately created to be smaller than usual, and the lessened player count is likely intended to cater to that even though the map is meant to encourage engaging and dense firefights that are typically only found in the final circles.
One could debate that keeping the map at the same size and allowing more players would force this style of combat even more significantly, but there’s little doubt that 40 is the magical number the development team has come at to keep things fast-paced without feeling unfair and random.
It looks certain that Call of Duty Warzone is a new series constant to keep players as the mainline installments come and go. With its success and other battle royale titles, Call of Duty Warzone is becoming the most flexible and long-running title in the series to date, and it will be exciting to see how the 40-player Rebirth Island map will stack up in terms of popularity compared to the tried and tested Verdansk map.
