[GameSpot] - Call Of Duty: Warzone's Caldera Map Continues To Improve With Season 3

[343iBot]

Call of Duty: Warzone's Caldera map arrived for Season 1 of Vanguard, shifting players from the drab buildings of Verdansk to a sunny island getaway. However, Season 1 also launched with myriad problems on Caldera that hindered the enjoyment and playability of the map. Now with the launch of Season 3, Warzone's tropical island is a much better place to visit.

Call of Duty Season 1 made it really hard to enjoy the beauty of the island with graphical bugs that caused giant polygon monsters to swallow buildings and players whole. Consoles struggled to keep up, with several crashing and performance issues across PlayStation and Xbox systems. Some of the operator skins in the battle pass were also broken, leaving many players to abuse skins that allowed them to be nothing more than a floating head on the map, making them frustrating to encounter. Furthermore, the Ricochet anti-cheat that was promised also didn't arrive to all regions at launch, so hackers continued to spoil all the fairness and fun. Overall, Caldera was a refreshing change in scenery for Warzone, but it got off to a really bad start.

The tides shifted as Call of Duty Season 2 was delayed, which Activision said was to give developers of both Warzone and Vanguard time to hammer out the issues within both games. Shortly after the announcement, Warzone developers admitted the game was broken and bloated, but reaffirmed the studio's dedication to fixing the problems. A delay in content can feel like a bummer, but the extra time helped Raven Software put Caldera in a much more playable state. Several updates were made to reduce the bugs and improve the game's overall performance, and the eventual launch of Season 2 continued to bring positive changes to Warzone's new map.

As Raven Software whittled down the issues with Caldera, a much smoother experience arrived with Season 2's big update. This improved version of Caldera also included new features and points of interest to breathe more life into the battle royale. Season 2's Redeploy Balloons were a big hit with players, allowing them to zip up and parachute back down to more easily traverse the massive island.

With the recent launch of Season 3: Classified Arms, Caldera continues to evolve into a much more satisfying battle royale experience. Season 3 for Warzone is themed around the upcoming battle between Godzilla and King Kong for the Operation Monarch event, bringing a host of positive map changes to Caldera.

To start, the island has shifted from a sunny paradise to a cloudy overcast. This atmospheric change makes a drastic improvement to visibility on the island, and players seem to be loving the lighting change. Additional improvement in visibility also comes from changes that Raven Software made to reduce the thick foliage in some areas of the island. As a result, there are fewer shadows and hiding spots, making it easier for players to spot enemies.

Season 3 also brings the new Dig Site point of interest and several other map changes to give Caldera a fresh Skull Island-inspired appearance for the upcoming arrival of King Kong and Godzilla. Caldera's ancient ruins, volcano, and newly unearthed monster bones make this the perfect place for the Hollywood titans to throw down. Overall, the map just looks more interesting and fun in this current season.

Season 3's Dig Site

It's also worth mentioning that Raven Software has done a pretty good job of keeping the weapon meta healthy for Warzone Pacific. Much of the lifespan of the Verdansk map was left to the chaos of overpowered guns, but the developer is now staying on top of weapon balancing. Broken weapons don't stay broken for long, and players aren't limited to using just a handful of guns to just to compete with the pack. Season 3's recent weapon balancing made major changes to Warzone's sniper rifles, and we recommend a few loadouts to try. The perk system even got a few changes, including the addition of lootable perks to give players an additional way to get their perks equipped.

The anti-cheat is also doing a solid job of detecting cheaters, as some players have been praising Ricochet for the lack of hackers in their matches. Activision's latest update to the software is even going so far as to troll cheaters with the new "cloaking" feature, which is a function that makes cheaters unable to see or hear any legitimate players.

While it's unfortunate that Warzone Pacific often felt like an unplayable experience in Season 1, it's great to see Raven Software make good on the promise to get Warzone into better shape. Season 3 feels like the best version of Caldera yet, and it should hopefully leave players more confident that Warzone will continue to receive positive changes as Vanguard's seasons progress.

Of course, it's uncertain how long Caldera will stick around, as Warzone 2 has already been announced. The battle royale's sequel is currently being developed alongside this year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. However, players are still left wondering if their cosmetics will transfer over to Warzone 2, but developers recently discussed the issues with trying to import all of the inventory from past titles.

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