Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Map Tier List
As the year closes out, fans are now diving into this season’s offering of Call of Duty multiplayer. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War brings gamers back into the Cold War setting, albeit a few decades later in the deadline. Compared to its predecessors, Black Ops Cold War’s map choice for multiplayer is a bit thinner at launching than some fans may have expected. Clocking in eight chief multiplayer maps, along with two additional maps exclusive to Fireteam manners, Black Ops Cold War provides among the tiniest map lineups in Call of Duty history. For all, this has been a key detractor in the Black Ops Cold War multiplayer experience thus far.
Complaints aside regarding the number of maps, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s selection itself is a solid mix between the three-lane style of classic Call of Duty maps and the more realistic strategy found in Modern Warfare. Many of the issues with camping and defendable places in Modern Warfare are significantly less related in Black Ops Cold War, but they sometimes pop up differently. A few maps have some baffling design options in certain manners and a few that harkens back to classic Call of Duty map design quite nicely.
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Best Of The Best: Armada, Garrison, Moscow
These three easily rank across all standard multiplayer modes as the best so far: Armada, Garrison, and Moscow. Even amongst the sparse lineup of multiplayer maps in the Black Ops Cold War, there are still several powerful maps from the game today. Not only do these three follow a similar design philosophy to the traditional three-lane structure of Call of Duty maps, but they include enough flair in between that is not game-breaking in many manners.
Moscow brilliantly accounts for long sight lines with a couple of cramped interior sections that offer a diverse experience for all playstyles and sport modes. Garrison has relatively longer sightlines and utilizes many similar short-range choke points along with verticality on the sides and center to close that distance. Armada’s the only one in this tier that does not follow the three-lane structure to a T, together with two equal lanes on either side and a third middle sector sunken deep beneath the ship.
Every one of these 3 maps is usually well designed for the game’s multiplayer offering, together with very few drawbacks involving them. Really, the only minor gripe is with Armada’s underwater shenanigans and the middle area at the boat’s bridge. Most of the time, anybody swimming underwater does not receive any concrete advantage in any circumstance, so it rarely becomes a problem. The middle area does cover both side lanes from above, but it’s not impossible to overtake. Moscow and Garrison have many interiors that can occasionally nullify airborne scorestreaks, but the big windows on both channels help mitigate the matter. In general, these are generally the best maps so far.
Middle Of The Road: Checkmate, Crossroads, Miami
Three of Black Ops Cold War’s maps simply have egregious problems in certain game modes: Checkmate, Crossroads, and Miami. These three maps can be pretty hit or miss depending on the manners at play, particularly Checkmate and Crossroads. Miami is normally serviceable, although not exceptional in any way, with several sections of the map that either go unused or aren’t particularly advantageous to be in. Areas such as the shore have absurdly long sightlines with no viable cover for use and essentially unnecessary to occupy unless the Hardpoint is there.
Checkmate is arguably the worst of the trio here. Long and narrow sightlines, with minimal cover inside them, in addition to a cramped airplane in the center of the map with multiple entrances, make objective-based modes extremely tough on Checkmate. Playing Domination is especially bad, as it frequently means taking the B point means that team wins the first half (or the game) on Checkmate. Crossroads has a different issue in that the spawn points and spawn-flipping are particularly bad with its small size. Playing modes like Hardpoint or Kill Confirmed on Crossroads is an exercise in watching every angle, not understanding when players will spawn on opposite ends.
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Worst Of The Worst: Cartel And Satellite
This means there are just two maps that are comparatively the worst, and for a good reason. Satellite, and notably Cartel, would be the worst designed avenues in Black Ops Cold War so far.
Satellite specifically is sniper’s heaven, which for Black Ops Cold War is already debatable and makes various manners caked on that map. Kill Confirmed and Domination are especially problematic: Whichever team chooses stage B first now retains a solid vantage point over the opposing team. Assuming the team is skilled, there is almost no way to take it back before halftime or at the game’s close. Snipers may use the dunes to cover either side of the map readily, along with the verticality at the middle of the map implies any cover on either side is essentially useless. It’s an early”winner-takes-all” map with hardly any comeback potential.
Cartel is even worse, but for various reasons. To begin with, there’s an especially bizarre design quirk using Cartel that’s not found in other avenues: the crop field. Several rows of coca plants take up the entire middle sector of the map, making it impossible to see through constantly. Spotting enemies is hopeless, which means manners like Domination or Hardpoint make the middle section hold by either team due to bullets’ flurry and ordinance, which may come from any direction. There’s no viable reason why having such low visibility serves as an interesting gameplay turn and makes Cartel easily the worst map from the game.
Overall, the small Choice of maps in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is fairly serviceable for its Wonderful multiplayer. There are several really well-designed maps, and a few not so much. Treyarch is assuring down more maps online when Season One starts, so things can only get better from here.
