In December 2021, the Warzone world mourned as Verdansk was stripped from the ever-popular battle royale platform and replaced with… Caldera. It was a move that heralded the end of many players’ journeys, and to this day, much of the Warzone community is calling out for Verdansk to make a monumental return to the game, quite clearly expressing the fact that they deeply miss the map.
But what if we were to look a little deeper at that concept and study the psychology behind it? What if we were to suggest that you don’t miss Verdansk, but you miss the vibes that we all experienced when the map went live?
Let’s toy with the idea.
Days Gone By
When Call of Duty Warzone was first released, the world was struggling under the weight of a global pandemic – COVID-19. In March 2020, when the all-new battle royale game dropped, millions upon millions of gamers were readily waiting to receive it, many of them toiling with the concept of lockdown in their respective countries.
It was an unprecedented time. In a flash, millions of people downloaded Call of Duty Warzone, this brand-new, free-to-play battle adventure hot off the Activision press, and got stuck in. It was an overnight sensation, and over time, it turned average gamers into superstar content creators, and it brought thousands of people into the fold where streaming was concerned.
It became a breeding ground for friendships, rivalries, and unexpected connections. For a while, Verdansk became a second home of sorts, with players now being forced to remain at home, being furloughed from work, or being made redundant altogether and then turning to Call of Duty Warzone to occupy their abundance of free time.
And that’s where we start to unpack the theory that you don’t miss Verdansk – you miss the vibes.
In Any Other World
If it were any other map, would it have been the same story?
As a collective, we poured millions of hours into Call of Duty Warzone, exploring every nook of Verdansk, but would it have played out the same way if the map were switched? I think so. I’d like to suggest that if Caldera or Al Mazrah was the map of choice in March 2020, those vibes would have made those maps seem just as memorable.
By the time Caldera was released, most of us were back at work, out of the house, and our circumstances had once again reverted to a sense of normalcy. For the majority of those still playing, our long-term duos, trios, or squads were reduced to shells of their former selves, with friends ‘maybe coming online for one tonight.’
I fell head over heels in love with Call of Duty Warzone when it was first released, and I too was furloughed from work, spending 16 weeks with little more to do than play games. I would revel with my friends until the early hours of the morning, slamming drop after drop after drop. It got to the point where I even secured a Guinness World Record on Call of Duty Warzone – on Verdansk.
But even with that in mind, I know that, in my heart, I miss those vibes and those experiences with friends more than I miss the map itself.
Let’s look at it like this:
- People complained about Verdansk relentlessly, even back then. Now, it’s a case of looking back with rose-tinted glasses, because what we have is ‘even worse’.
- When people talk about ‘bringing Verdansk back’, it’s almost always paired up with ‘and Warzone 1’s movement’, because if Verdansk was revived in Warzone’s newer engine, we still wouldn’t be happy with the map.
- There’s nothing memorable about Caldera or Al Mazrah, but when people think back to Verdansk, almost everyone has a story to tell about an epic clutch-up or a hilarious situation that unfolded mid-match – and these tales almost always involve friends.
It’s a case of us not knowing what we had until it was gone. In the words of Andy Bernard of the US television show, The Office:
I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.
Even if Verdansk was reintroduced to Call of Duty Warzone, we’d likely see a massive resurgence overnight that would trickle away to nothing as soon as people realised that although the map had returned…
… the vibes hadn’t.
For more Insider Gaming news, check out the coverage of our interview with DeadPoly’s solo indie developer
No… I miss Verdansk.
i miss verdansk, dont tell me otherwise