Activision’s mega-million dollar franchise Call of Duty has seen its fair share of post-game content and map releases over the years. Downloadable map purchases hit their stride with the release of Modern Warfare 2 and evolved into the now defunct Call of Duty Elite, where subscribers were given access to in-depth weapon stats and map guides on top of all the downloadable content for that yearly Call of Duty title.
With news of Call of Duty: Black Ops III getting four DLC map packs in October, publisher Activision has finally announced details for the first set. Titled Awakening, the pack includes 4 new maps and a new Zombies experience set in a World War 2 era Austrian castle. The multiplayer map locations include a military training facility, an abandoned water theme park, a construction site on the outskirts of Zurich, and a security VTOL above the clouds.
The individual map packs cost $14.99 while players can get all four discounted for $49.99 with the Awakening DLC set to launch on February 2nd, 2016. Studio Head Mark Lamia of Treyarch said in a press release, “With Awakening, the studio is focused on creating a wide variety of gameplay experiences for our fans in Multiplayer and Zombies that will keep players coming back for more."
Switching allegiances this generation, the map packs will now go first to PlayStation consoles with others to follow, usually 30 days later, as Sony push to make the PlayStation 4 the home of Call of Duty. PlayStation’s partnership with Call of Duty doesn’t end there, since Sony is also releasing custom console bundles last month for the title, as well as PlayStation becoming the presenting partner for the recently announced Call of Duty World League.
With Black Ops III pushing its focus to e-Sports and the competitive gaming scene, it will be interesting to gauge the thoughts of pro players and teams on this next set of maps as they are thrown into the ranked playlists and tested by the community. Developer Treyarch will have surely attempted to construct more balanced maps for competitive play as opposed to coming in with a more casual design approach as we saw with some of the bigger maps intended for social play in past Call of Duty titles.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is currently available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The Awakening DLC will release on February 2nd, 2016.
