Now that the dust has settled—or rather rewound a few decades—on the nuking of Verdansk, Warzone’s new map is finally live: Verdansk. Or Verdansk 84 to be more precise, a 1984 version of the city and surrounding areas that will tie into the ongoing Black Ops Cold War storyline. But this is far more than a simple 1980s reskin of the map we’ve known for the past year. This new old Verdansk houses plenty of new points of interest, drastic changes to its layout, and other secrets and surprises just waiting for players to discover them.
Following yesterday’s Destruction of Verdansk Part 1 event, where players were caught with no escape as a zombie-filled Verdansk was nuked, players then were tasked with setting off the nuke themselves from Rebirth Island today. After a scrap that saw everyone fighting over control of the nuclear device—with the winners declared the Destroyers of Verdansk—time rewound via a cutscene, and players were immediately dropped into this new 1984 version of the map.
Now, ideally, the discovery Verdansk 84 would have come via this event, however countless leaks and issues, like private matches allowing players to get into it early, caused Verdansk 84 to get into the open earlier than intended. This led to Activision releasing the latest trailer for Warzone—filled with a whole bunch of celebrities I’ve never heard of—early, a few hours ahead of the in-game reveal of the new map. Whether or not this was scheduled beforehand is unknown, but it feels like the early reveal deflated the end of the live event a bit more than intended.
You can watch the new “Squad Up the World” trailer below, which incidentally is the same trailer that had a pre-viz leak a few weeks ago.
Verdansk 84 features a whole new look, with Season Three’s Black Ops Cold War map Mount Yamantau mid-explosion in the distance. The seasons have changed—Verdansk is now mid to late spring, rather than in the cold and frozen throes of winter. And there were a lot of differences in its layout 35+ years ago.
Previously destroyed places like Airport are now whole again. Buildings are either mid-construction, completely different, or don’t exist at all. The Stadium is an older open-air version, before the new one was built. The dam isn’t there, with the upper portion of the map flanked by an aqueduct and new “Summit” point of interest. And these aren’t just small visual changes. They drastically alter the layout of previously popular, or unpopular, points of interest to create the sense that this truly is a brand new map.
Even familiar buildings, like the police stations that dot the map, have different accessible doors, hallways, and windows, to really shake up how players are using these traditional bastions of safety. Activision and Raven have outlined 20 of the biggest differences with Verdansk 84, but just reading about them is very different from dropping in and experiencing them for yourself.
Now that Verdansk 84 is live and the Destruction of Verdansk event is complete, Season Three has officially kicked off for Black Ops Cold War and Warzone. Raven says that the modern day Verdansk map has been completely nuked and won’t be returning in the future at all. It’s story is done, after all, ended with the eradication of the zombie outbreak and the Operators who were continuing to hold it back.
Right now, players can participate in a special limited time “Hunt For Adler” event, completing challenges in both games to rescue Adler and earn an exclusive event skin. Where that leads into as Season Three continues has yet to be seen, but with Verdansk 84 now a major part of the Black Ops Cold War story, Raven and Treyarch can do a lot more to interweave that narrative moving forward.
