Highlights
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will feature 16 remastered maps from Modern Warfare 2, which is a treat for fans of the franchise.
- One of these maps, Underpass, has had a reputation for being frustrating due to its lack of Killstreak viability and obstructed visibility.
- Sledgehammer Games is making changes to the remastered maps, including Underpass, to address these issues and improve gameplay.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has the potential to be one of the best entries in recent franchise history, though it currently sits on a knife's edge. During its initial announcement, Sledgehammer Games confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 wouldn't have any original 6v6 maps of its own on launch, but would instead have a total of 16 remastered maps, all coming from 2009's Modern Warfare 2.
On one hand, having a total of 16 maps right out of the gate is pretty excellent for a new Call of Duty entry, and having them all come from the original Modern Warfare 2 means that fans will be treated to some of the greatest CoD maps ever made all over again. On the other hand, though fans are sure to have a great deal of nostalgia for all of MW2's classic maps, the hard truth is that some of them just objectively weren't all that great, and Underpass has the potential to be just as annoying as it was all those years ago.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's Underpass Map Might Be Just as Frustrating as Ever
While Underpass is not the worst map in Call of Duty history, it's often heralded as one of the more frustrating offerings in Modern Warfare 2. One of the biggest issues with Underpass is its lack of Killstreak viability, essentially rendering all aerial attacks redundant. Any form of aerial Killstreak just doesn't really work on Underpass, with Pavelows, chopper gunners, and AC-130s all being easily avoidable by simply rushing into one of the map's many covered areas. Even Care Packages don't work all too well on Underpass, often getting stuck on various high structures scattered around the environment.
But Killstreaks are far from the only issue Underpass has. In the original 2009 version of Modern Warfare 2, Underpass has a constant rain weather effect that plays throughout the match. While the effect was cool to see in a match, it often led to a great deal of frustration in practice, greatly obstructing the player's view by giving the map an overly gray look. This made it all too easy for players to hide in darkened spots around the map like bushes or alleyways, and this led to a pretty dull meta.
To try and combat Underpass' lower visibility, many players would switch to using a sniper or assault rifle with a thermal scope, thus making it much easier for them to see foes hiding in the darkness. These types of weapons also naturally led to a lot of players starting to camp in the map's harder-to-reach areas, which in turn started to drastically affect the flow of a given match. While most Modern Warfare 2 maps encourage run-and-gun gameplay, Underpass' meta brought the flow to a grinding halt.
But Underpass isn't an inherently awful map. Since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's announcement, Sledgehammer Games has stated that its bevy of remastered maps are undergoing some slight changes when it comes to both visual design and gameplay. Hopefully, Underpass will receive a few changes all of its own. Weather effects aren't often seen in CoD multiplayer, and it'd be great to see it return in Modern Warfare 3's version of Underpass, but it should definitely be reworked so that it doesn't completely obstruct the player's vision and add a strange fog to the map. Similarly, Underpass could be given some more open areas, and potentially remove some of the roofs of its larger buildings to make aerial Killstreaks more viable.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is set to release on November 10 2023 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S and X, and PC.