Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered to Get New Map Pack

It’s a dream come true for Call of Duty fans: Activision will extend the playability of Modern Warfare Remastered with a new Map Pack.

This is great news.

As you may recall, the more expensive versions of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare include an updated version of the COD classic Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. This game is not only better than Infinite Warfare, it is in fact “gaming perfection,” as I called it, in both single-player and multiplayer guises.

When that game originally shipped in November 2016, it included 10 multiplayer maps from the original game. But a December Update brought the final six in-box maps that COD gamers know and love from the original release, completing the package.

But here’s the thing. As awesome as Modern Warfare is—and it really is awesome—I can’t get a year’s worth of play out of this thing. The issue is that I’d already done that, back in 2007-2008, when the original was released. And in 2014-2015, I also spent much of that year playing COD 4: Modern Warfare and other classic COD games because I was so disinterested in Advanced Warfare, which was the then-new game. When it comes to Modern Warfare, I’ve pretty much done it all, like a million times.

Two possibilities emerged in my mind: Perhaps Activision would release remastered versions ofModern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 with subsequent COD releases in 2017 and 2018; this is still a possibility, though it doesn’t solve my issue for this year. Or maybe—just maybe—it would keep building off of Modern Warfare Remastered by adding more classic MW multiplayer maps, as Map Packs. Maybe it would keep making Modern Warfare Remastered better.

So it’s not really doing either of those things, though Activision is in fact making Modern Warfare Remastered better by adding new maps. But those maps aren’t from MW2 or 3, they’re from the downloadable content (DLC) drops from the original Modern Warfare. So starting this month—on PlayStation 4, grrrr, and then a month later on Xbox One—Modern Warfare Remastered will get four new Modern Warfare maps derived from the original game’s DLC.

Oh joy.

The Map Pack is called Variety Pack, and it will cost $15, a price I will happily pay. It includes four new—well, classic—maps:

Broadcast. A fan favorite that is based around a TV station from the “Charlie Don’t Surf” single-player level.

Chinatown. A remake of the Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 classic map “Carentan.”

Creek. Another classic and fan favorite in which farm houses are separated by a sniper-tastic ravine.

Killhouse. An experimental small map with close-quarters fighting. Not my favorite.

The Variety Pack arrives March 21 on PlayStation 4. And I suspect that gamer response to this DLC will determine whether Activision does more of this. I hope that they do.