When it first released in March 2020, Call of Duty: Warzone quickly became one of the most popular battle royale games on the market. Though Fortnite and Apex Legends were still considered to be the best of the genre, Warzone's inherent appeal and brand recognition quickly propelled it to the top, where it's pretty much stayed since. Now, all eyes are on the sequel, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, and its brand-new map Al Mazrah.
One of the defining features of any battle royale is its map. For most battle royales, there's usually only one map for players to drop into, and it's where they'll be spending all of their in-game time. A good battle royale map needs a distinct identity and enough variation to keep players dropping in for months to come. Though just a few brief glimpses of it have been shown so far, it already seems as though Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0's Al Mazrah map can do that.
Warzone 2.0's Al Mazrah Already Feels Distinct
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Call of Duty: Warzone's original map Verdansk is still widely regarded as one of the best battle royale maps of all time. With a large cityscape, a farmland, quarry area, suburb, and dam, Verdansk definitely had variation when it came to environments, but the same couldn't really be said for its visual design. For the most part, Verdansk's points of interest all blurred together in one big blob of gray and green, so while the architecture of the areas varied quite a bit, it all looked pretty similar across the map. This only got worse with Warzone's 84 update, which gave a few areas a 1980s-inspired visual overhaul and only served to add more gray to the game.
Aside from the balance and technical issues brought with its introduction, Call of Duty: Warzone's latest map Caldera was seen by many as a strong visual improvement over its predecessor. Swapping Verdansk's modern, industrial setting for a World War 2-inspired Pacific island, Caldera was a much brighter map, but much of its architecture still resembled that same dull, industrial palette.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0's Al Mazrah map seems as though it might just offer the best of both worlds, while also carving out its own identity in the process. Al Mazrah immediately sets itself apart from Caldera and Verdansk by being set in the desert, and having much of its structures caked in sand and dirt. Al Mazrah also offers an unparalleled amount of variety in its key locations. Based on the map overview given at the Call of Duty Next event, it seems as though Al Mazrah will have two distinct cityscapes, a marshland, a port, quarry, airport, sunken village, oasis, and an observatory.
On top of the visual variety provided in these different types of areas, Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0's Al Mazrah map will also provide a lot of different gameplay opportunities and make use of Modern Warfare 2's new mechanics. For instance, eagle-eyed fans will spot that there's a lot of water in this Warzone map, with bridges going over it, two different bays, and rivers running throughout the map. This is to encourage players to use the new swimming and underwater gunplay mechanics, as well as incentivize using the new boat vehicles. Even after just one trailer and a handful of streams, it seems as though fans have already memorized a few of Al Marzrah's most distinctive areas, already confirming the map to have its own unique identity.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2 launches on November 16 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.