At the end of 2020, Call of Duty: Warzone players began hearing murmurs of a potential nuke being launched within Verdansk. While these rumors eventually fizzled out, they began to pick up again at the start of Season 2, and leaks began to show that there was a nuke event on the way. With several aspects of said leaks confirmed by the game’s updates, and even a proper in-game teaser added by Raven Software, the nuke event seems all-but-confirmed at this point.

When the nuke does finally drop inside Call of Duty: Warzone, it is going to change the free-to-play title forever. Not only will a new kind of gameplay supposedly be seen, but a fresh map will apparently appear as well. Further, a potentially controversial decision is supposedly going to be made with the original play space, something that would undoubtedly be a big risk. As such, for better or worse, the nuke event is going to be the biggest change in the history of Call of Duty: Warzone.

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Currently, players are in the very first stage of this nuke event. Before anything involving the missile can happen, the cause for the detonation needs to be established. In-universe, this cause will be an otherwise-uncontainable Zombies outbreak, with the nuke being used as a final hope for containing the pandemic. Leakers have stated that the nuke will be dropped once the undead have spread all throughout Verdansk, and sure enough, that is exactly what is happening in-game right now. Starting from the Shipwreck, Zombies have since moved to the Gulag and the Hospital. Soon, the undead will reach Verdansk’s bank, with more locations likely to follow.

Once the Zombies have spread throughout Verdansk, a new game mode called Plague will supposedly be added. According to a leaked description and several voice lines from this mode, players will be tasked with clearing out infected hotspots. Likely to be all the locations that the Zombies have spread to, players that succeed will successfully leave the area. Those that fail will see a nuke being called in, however, and they will have one final chance to fight through the undead as they reach the extraction zone. Apparently, this failure is the canon ending, and players can expect the nuke to be launched from one of Call of Duty: Warzone’s silos.

While this mode is interesting for several reasons, as fighting Zombies to escape from a nuke is a wild concept, the fact that Call of Duty: Warzone fans will even be able to play something like this is huge. This will be the very first PvE game mode in the history of Call of Duty: Warzone, and if it performs well, it may not be the last. Based on the leaked description, Plague mode will be unlike anything in Call of Duty Warzone thus far, and more experimental PvE content like this limited time mode could be the result. Regardless of whether something else like it does come, though, this mode’s addition is undoubtedly a big change for the game.

While the nuke’s arrival could easily be used as an ending to the ongoing Zombies story arc, it will apparently be much more meaningful than that. While a nuclear explosion could devastate Verdansk, creating severe map changes that make the map look nothing like its former self, leakers have claimed that the map will cease to exist altogether. Apparently, the nuke event will also mark the end of Verdansk, and it will be interesting to see how the game’s fans handle such a large change.

The map has been with Call of Duty: Warzone from day one, after all, and Verdansk has evolved plenty over the past year. Players have learned its ins and outs, completed easter eggs in several locations, and seen the map transformed during the Haunting of Verdansk event. Despite all this time spent expanding on the map, though, whether it be through the addition of the train or the Bunkers scattered throughout the fictional country, Verdansk will supposedly be leaving permanently once the map is destroyed through Plague mode.

Removing the game’s main map is a massive risk on the part of Activision and Raven Software, but such a move would undoubtedly get people interested in what exactly is happening within Call of Duty: Warzone. Fresh eyes being on the game will be good for its growth, and on top of that, the removal of Verdansk will funnel everyone into its 1980s-themed replacement. While players will need to learn a whole new location and focus more on skill than muscle memory, this could ultimately be a good thing for the game’s popularity — though it is absolutely a massive change.

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Fortunately, players do know a fair bit about Verdansk’s replacement. As opposed to only having the fun-but-small Rebirth Island map to choose from, players will be given access to the Ural Mountains as the new main map. According to leaks, this will be made up of the locations seen in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s Zombie Outbreak and Fireteam Dirty Bomb game modes. It is rumored to include swimming mechanics and gunboats alongside Treyarch’s style of map design. With the Fireteam locations being so visually diverse thus far, it will be interesting to see how they come together to form one large map.

The map will supposedly be exceptionally large, though, as leaks have reported that it can hold 250 players in a single match. This would be a huge change for Call of Duty: Warzone, as it would make matches last longer while also ensuring that there is more action inside each and every game. Though there are risks to this size increase, such as more bugs and stability issues, it would undoubtedly be another game-changer — proving that the aftermath of the nuke event is just as meaningful as the destruction of Verdansk itself.

Come the supposed April 22 start date of the event, players may be seeing things they have never experienced in the game before. A PvE-focused game will reportedly become playable for the first time inside Call of Duty: Warzone, while the map players know and love may be taken away forever. A new, full-size map would become playable in its place, introducing a larger player count and a whole new batch of locations for gamers to explore. If the leaks continue to prove true for this nuke event, and if it lives up to the hype, Call of Duty: Warzone may be completely reinventing itself next month.

Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

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