Black Ops 6 finally brings back the real Nuketown after 14 years
Nuketown has been remade, remade, and remade again for the sake of keeping the map alive in future Call of Duty games. However, Black Ops 6 is bringing back the original version of the map to the mainline CoD series for the first time since the original Black Ops.
When Black Ops 1 released in late 2010, Nuketown became an instant classic. It’s not the only map from the classic CoD game that stood the test of time considering Firing Range has been brought back a few times, but it’s easily one of the most iconic maps in the series.
It’s also been revived in various CoD games since, with Black Ops 2, 3, 4, Cold War, Declassified (the PS VITA exclusive Black Ops that everyone forgot about) and CoD mobile. And that doesn’t include versions of the map layout that came to Zombies, BO4’s Blackout, and Warzone.
However, outside of the mobile version of the game, the original look and feel of Nuketown have been confined to that first Black Ops game. Until now, that is.
This closes the door for the devs to modify the map and try to improve upon the original, but it could be argued that the original is perfect just the way it was.
Considering many of the people playing Call of Duty today weren’t old enough to experience Nuketown as it was originally designed, it’s a welcome re-addition to the series. Who knows, maybe some other OG map layouts will return in later seasons? Maybe trying to fix what wasn’t broken was the wrong call.
That said, most of Black Ops 6’s maps are entirely new. Feedback during the beta was mixed when it came to the new layouts, but there were certainly some positive standouts that brought something new to the table.
It was a different look compared to Modern Warfare 3’s release with every base map being from MW2 2009. Treyarch is aiming to bring fresh maps to the game while also paying homage to the classics.