Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players have visualized their frustration with the Al Bagra Fortress map in a funny, if hardly scientific piece of art. The new Call of Duty game has now been available for over a week, and Modern Warfare 2 players are starting to acclimate to its gameplay. As is now an annual pastime, players are most frequently commiserating regarding their frustrations with the new game. Al Bagra Fortress is just one focus for those frustrations.
Al Bagra Fortress is a brand-new map introduced in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It's a Multiplayer map designed for 6v6 combat, meaning it's played in the traditional Call of Duty style. That is, players that are eliminated then spawn in a "safe" place somewhere on the map, with a priority to be spawned near a teammate. As Call of Duty players are already intimately familiar, this spawning system can be problematic on maps that aren't balanced well.
The image, shared on Reddit, colors in one part of the Al Bagra Fortress map in blue and the rest of the map in green. The implication is that the blue team ends up spawn trapped in this limited area while the green team has full control of the rest of the map. Due to the way spawning works in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the blue-spawn players are forced to aggressively push out into the green team's defensive positions. This often ends poorly for them.
There are any number of reasons why Al Bagra Fortress is having issues with team spawns. There could be too few options to exit the area for the blue team, too strong of line-of-sight positions for the green team, or the spawning system may overprioritize team spawn versus safe spawns in the opposite corner of the map. Regardless of the reasons, they should be able to be addressed by Infinity Ward without changing the layout of the map.
Part of what players find so frustrating about Al Bagra Fortress having balance concerns is that maps are such an important part of players' enjoyment of a new game. If a map leads to a bad experience, players will associate that map with negativity. Gameplay doesn't matter past that point since there are only so many maps, and it's inevitably going to come up again.
It's also possible that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players are being unfair about Al Bagra Fortress. Its issues could be exaggerated, or it may just take some extra time to figure out its spawns. Call of Duty games aren't always given a fair chance, but that doesn't mean Infinity Ward won't be paying attention for future changes.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.