Black Ops 6 is hiding the next Call of Duty: Warzone map in plain sight

(Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Nothing gets past Call of Duty fans. It took all of 48 hours for Black Ops 6 players to notice that some of its 6v6 multiplayer maps are actually just points of interest plucked from what is very likely the next Warzone map arriving in Season 1.

It's big, it's green, and it's currently very low detail. Welcome to Avalon (probably):

Not much to look at right now, but don't pay too much mind to the blurry textures. The only way to take a fly-by tour of Avalon right now is by creating a private match on one of the maps that exists on the larger Avalon landmass (as far as I know, that's Redcard, Lowtown, and maybe Skyline) as the "CoD Caster" role and freecamming right out of the map boundary. The game only renders the 6v6 map in full detail, so everything outside of it looks like a mid-budget PS1 game.

It's kinda beautiful to see map geometry stripped down to its bare necessities. I godmoded around Avalon for a while and snapped some postcard pics from my favorite locations that don't have names yet (so I made some up):

Hotel Blur

Skrunkle Pier

Three Orb Gorge

Lowtown (Wrinkly)

Microsoft Flight Sim

Blurderburg

Not Landing Here

Bridge

Golf War

Unlike the skyboxes of regular CoD maps, which tend to render a half-mile or so of blurry hills or trees before becoming a bottomless void from which none can escape, flying outside of Redcard reveals entire towns, landmarks, and wouldn't you know, a low-res version of Lowtown itself. There's no reason for all of this super far away stuff to exist if it didn't serve some bigger purpose, which is why this is obviously a Warzone map. A pretty huge one, too: it takes over a minute just to cross the thing at superhuman speeds.

Though Activision probably won't be ready to talk about it until sometime next month, all signs point to Avalon being the primary Warzone map for six months at least. It's certainly the prettiest one the series has produced since Al Mazrah, though I reckon some players will be bummed that we're not getting that remastered version of Verdansk until spring of 2025.

TOPICS

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.