What you need to know
- Call of Duty NEXT is a showcase that highlights upcoming Call of Duty premium titles each year, along with changes made to Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile.
- This year’s COD NEXT showcase is on August 28 at 9 AM PT/12 PM ET.
- A new Warzone map, dubbed Area 99, was revealed on social media announcing what topics will be covered during COD NEXT 2024.
Call of Duty: Warzone will be getting its first brand-new map since the release of Urzikstan in the Season 1 update for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The map, reportedly titled “Area 99”, was revealed on the official Call of Duty social media accounts along with a list of other reveals players can expect when the franchise’s annual showcase, COD NEXT, kicks off on August 28. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available to preorder now at Best Buy for $69.99.
Premium Call of Duty titles have been folded into the Warzone universe since the game’s meteoric rise to prominence in 2020. The free-to-play battle royale was originally tied into the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) timeline, but Activision found tying the marketing for the following year’s release, Black Ops Cold War, to be successful. This kicked off a still-ongoing trend of tying the annual titles to Warzone. The process was so successful that it led to the decision to launch Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 along with Modern Warfare 2 (2022), permanently uniting Warzone and premium titles in one Call of Duty HQ launcher.
The result of that process has been a bit of a roller coaster, with players growing increasingly frustrated at the ever-expanding file sizes and a general disdain for new map designs from the community. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) brought with it the launch of a new mainline battle royale map, based on the fictional country of Urzikstan. Later seasonal updates added popular Resurgence mode maps Rebirth Island and Fortune’s Keep, remastered from their original Warzone 1.0 glory, back into the playlist rotation.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 leaks have been steady, and original reports from reputable leakers in the COD community had declared that there would be no new mainline battle royale map following the game’s launch this October. Those same leakers are remaining steadfast in that claim and reporting that Area 99 will be a small map for Resurgence mode, similar to Rebirth Island and Fortune’s Keep. Leakers point to an expected release as part of the Season 1 content for Black Ops 6 for Area 99. Changes to Urzikstan’s layout and Points of Interest (POIs) are supposedly included in that time frame, followed by a release of a “reimagining” of Verdansk to come with Season 2 or 3 in early 2025.
Call of Duty social posts confirmed the map will be premiered by Treyarch, indicating the studio is likely responsible for its development. Only one image of the map was included, and it was heavily obscured by text.
Activision has confirmed that live gameplay on Area 99 and a deep dive into game features with Raven Software will also be a part of the COD NEXT showcase. Gameplay and deep dive of the new Zombies mode set on the Liberty Falls map, live multiplayer gameplay, and a deep dive of the maps available during the Black Ops 6 open beta are also planned to be part of the show.
Thankfully, we won’t have to wait too long to learn more about Area 99 as it is set to be officially revealed during the Call of Duty NEXT showcase on August 28, beginning at 9 AM PT/12 PM ET.
