A “large percentage” of Call of Duty players have never seen the original version of one of the franchise’s most famous maps, Nuketown, according to level designer Adam Hoggatt. That’s part of the reason why Hoggatt is excited to bring it back for Black Ops 6 this November.
Speaking to IGN, Hoggatt revealed that Black Ops 6’s version of Nuketown will be “the original Nuketown” but with better visuals. The Black Ops 6 series has featured all manner of different iterations of Black Ops 6 over the years–including a futuristic take from Black Ops III–but Black Ops 6 will go back to the map’s roots.
“I think the original has a kind of special place in my heart. Recently it started occurring to me that probably a large percentage of our players had never actually experienced the original one,” he said. “So I am really excited that with Black Ops 6 can now get to basically revisit the original Nuketown and exactly the magic that was the original one but looking better than it has ever looked.”
Hoggatt also talked about how Nuketown was not a “production map” for the 2010 original Black Ops. Instead, it was an experiment of sorts within the studio about what a small-sized map might look like set in a nuclear test town. The team loved it and it’s become one of Call of Duty’s most enduringly popular maps across all of the sub-brands.
Nuketown is not one of the 16 launch maps for Black Ops 6, but will come to the game as free DLC on November 1. Some had theorized that Black Ops 6’s version of Nuketown could take place in the ’90s like the game’s campaign, but that won’t be the case. This is the original, 1950s-style Nuketown. And if the layout is similar, players can expect fast and chaotic action.
Black Ops 6 also has a Strike map called Warhead that takes place in the Nuketown neighborhood, but a key difference is that it’s set in the aftermath of a bomb test. As such, the buildings have been reclaimed by the sands of the desert, with debris scattered throughout.
The Nuketown connections extend to Warzone, as well, as the battle royale game’s new map is called Area 99–that’s where Nuketown was born.
