Warzone Caldera release date and Early Access
Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone: Pacific Season 1 begins on December 8. When Season 1 begins, Verdansk will be removed from Warzone, at least for the time being. When Verdansk exits, early access to Caldera begins for all players who own Call of Duty: Vanguard. If you own Vanguard, Caldera playlists will be accessible as soon as servers go live on December 8. If you don’t own Vanguard, don’t fret. Rebirth Island will remain available, and you can play it to your heart’s content until Caldera’s full release. Thankfully, the wait won’t be long. Caldera becomes available to all Warzone players on December 9. At that time, all Rebirth Island playlists will be removed until an unspecified date “later in Season One,” according to Activision’s blog post on the subject.
How does Caldera compare to Verdansk?
Activision has released an official map of Caldera, seen above, which includes map regions and points of interest. The scale lines indicate that Caldera is about the same size as Verdansk. Expect this to be an apt replacement, with a similar scale and player counts. However, scenes of the map in trailers and other official images point towards a much different gameplay flow. In its remote island setting, Caldera replaces the skyscrapers of Downtown Verdansk with rocky hills and mountains. There will be no Downtown roof snipers here, and any mountain snipers may find that the thicker tree cover of Caldera foils their plans. Buildings generally look to be smaller and more spread out. Expect a welcome reprieve from the last two years of stairwell fights on Verdansk. The jungle terrain will also have a direct impact on gameplay, with some new features that encourage some experimentation. While players won’t be able to swim in the oceans and rivers of Caldera, there will be shallow water that is navigable on foot. Rivers and swamps will hide footprints from Tracker perk users, and players that “crouch in knee-high water… gain the effects of Cold Blooded,” according to the aforementioned blog post. Additionally, throwing Molotov Cocktails or other sources of fire into the water will generate smoke clouds. We haven’t seen this in action yet, but it sounds like the wetter parts of Caldera will provide opportunities for new, stealthy styles of play.
What modes and playlists will be available on Caldera?
Caldera is fully replacing Verdansk as the core map in Call of Duty: Warzone. So, the core Battle Royale playlists, including Solos, Duos, Trios, and Squads will all be migrating over to Caldera. These will function much as they always have, and Vanguard content will integrate in much the same way as Cold War did last year. All 38 Vanguard weapons plus two new Battle Pass guns will be available for your loadouts, alongside the existing arsenals from Modern Warfare and Cold War. The core Battle Royale playlists will be accompanied by a series of rotating Vanguard playlists, which feature exclusively Vanguard weapons, both on the floor and in your loadouts, paired with some special rulesets. The first of these, available on December 9, is Vanguard Royale, which features additional World War 2-era vehicles. These include fighter planes, a first for Warzone, so be ready for a totally new experience. Other, as-of-yet-unannounced Vanguard playlists will rotate in throughout Pacific Season 1.
New Contracts and Public Events on Caldera
While Activision has not specifically confirmed whether any existing contract types are leaving the drop pool in Warzone: Pacific, they have provided some information on brand new contract types. The first of these is the Supply Drop contract, “which airlifts a valuable crate onto the map for anyone to pick up,” according to the Caldera blog post. Other teams can fight you for the contents of the crate, but only the contract owners will get the heads-up on the drop location. As for what those contents can be, we’ll have to wait and see on December 8. Caldera also introduces a Big Game Bounty contract, a variation on the existing bounty contract. Big Game Bounties always target the player with the highest kill count and will reward your squad for eliminating them. However, the Big Game Bounty is only available once per match. The last of the three contracts revealed thus far is the Top Secret contract. As is befitting the name, we know just about nothing about how this contract works. However, Activision promises “greater rewards compared to the standard from the contract it comes from,” in their blog post. This seems to imply that Top Secret contracts are variations on existing types, but it is unlikely we’ll know much more than that before release. Check back here after December 8 for more information as we uncover it. Warzone: Pacific will also feature new Public Events to break up gameplay. These include the Cash Drop event recently introduced in Operation: Flashback playlists. Additionally, there will be new “[[REDACTED]] Weapon Crate” events. Like with Top Secret contracts, information on these is fittingly sparse. Expect some powerful weapon blueprints though. We’ll update you on this page once we get our hands on the patch and figure these out, or if more information is revealed before release. That’s every detail we have on Caldera! Expect updates to this guide as more information is released, and as we get a chance to play on the map ourselves. We will be here to help you strategize, figure out new contracts, and more after release. In the meantime, check out our guides to the best loadouts and best weapons in Warzone to get caught up on the pre-Vanguard meta.
