Call of Duty: Warzone’s Caldera map has arrived for Vanguard Season 1, moving players from the seedy buildings of Verdansk to a vacation on a sunny island. However, Season 1 also launched with a myriad of issues on Caldera that hampered the map’s fun and playability. Now with the launch of season 3, the tropical island of Warzone is a much better place to visit.
Call of Duty Season 1 made it really difficult to enjoy the beauty of the island with graphic bugs that caused buildings and players to be swallowed whole by giant polygonal monsters. Consoles struggled to keep up, with several crashing and performance issues on PlayStation and Xbox systems. Some 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. Plus, even the Ricochet anti-cheat that was promised didn’t make it to all regions at launch, so hackers continued to spoil all the fairness and fun. Overall, Caldera was a refreshing change of scenery for Warzone, but it got off to a really bad start.
The tides have changed as Call of Duty Season 2 was delayed, which Activision said was to give the Warzone and Vanguard developers time to troubleshoot issues within both games. Shortly after the announcement, Warzone developers admitted the game was broken and bloated, but reiterated the studio’s dedication to troubleshooting. A delay in content may seem like a shame, but the extra time has helped Raven Software put Caldera in a much more playable state. Several updates have been made to reduce bugs and improve the overall performance of the game, and the eventual launch of Season 2 has continued to make positive changes to the new Warzone map.
When Raven Software reduced the issues with Caldera, a much smoother experience came with the big update of Season 2. This improved version of Caldera also included new features and points of interest to bring the battle royale to life. Season 2 redistribution balloons have been a huge hit with players, allowing them to get up and parachute to cross the huge island more easily.
With the recent launch of Season 3: Classified Arms, Caldera continues to evolve into a much more satisfying battle royale experience. Warzone Season 3 focuses on the upcoming battle between Godzilla and King Kong for the Operation Monarch event, bringing a number of positive map changes to Caldera.
For starters, the island went from a sunny paradise to a cloudy sky. This atmospheric change drastically improves visibility on the island and players seem to love the change in lighting. A further improvement in visibility also comes from changes made by Raven Software to reduce dense foliage in certain areas of the island. As a result, there are fewer shadows and hiding places, making it easier for players to spot enemies.
Season 3 also brings the new Dig Site Point of Interest and many other map changes to give Caldera a new Skull Island-inspired look for the upcoming arrival of King Kong and Godzilla. The ancient Caldera ruins, volcano and newly unearthed monster bones make this place the perfect place for Hollywood titans to take down. Overall, the map looks more interesting and fun this current season.
It’s also worth mentioning that Raven Software has done a great job of keeping the weapon meta for Warzone Pacific healthy. Much of the Verdansk map’s lifespan has been left to the chaos of overwhelmed weapons, but now the developer is always keeping up with the balance of weapons. Broken weapons don’t stay broken for long, and players don’t just use a handful of guns just to compete with the pack. The recent Season 3 Weapon Balance has made major changes to Warzone’s sniper rifles and we recommend trying a few loadouts. The perk system has also made some changes, including adding lootable perks to give players an additional way to equip their perks.
The anti-cheat is also doing a good job of detecting cheaters, as some players have praised Ricochet for the lack of hackers in their games. Activision’s latest software update even goes as far as trolling cheaters with the new “cloaking” feature, which is a feature that prevents cheaters from seeing or hearing legitimate players.
While it’s a shame that Warzone Pacific often felt like an unplayable experience in Season 1, it’s good to see Raven Software deliver on its promise to get Warzone back in shape. Season 3 still looks like the best version of Caldera, and hopefully it should leave players more confident that Warzone will continue to receive positive changes as the seasons of Vanguard progress.
Of course, it’s unclear how long Caldera will be around, as Warzone 2 has already been announced. The battle royale sequel is currently in development alongside this year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. However, players continue to wonder if their cosmetics will carry over to Warzone 2, but the developers recently discussed issues with trying to import all inventory from past titles.
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