While our bullets harmonised in song and grenades clapped a round of applause, the fabled Verdansk was the dancefloor that we pirouetted on for years.
But as every dance ends in a swansong, Verdansk was taken from us before we could finish appreciating its beauty, never to return. Or so we believed.
The Warzone Verdansk map is on its way back to the Call of Duty universe (console), as the Modern Warfare 3 promotional video confirms its return.
Modern Warfare 3 will feature Verdansk-based campaign missions.
Click to enlargeModern Warfare 3 has been officially announced by Activision, with Sledgehammer Games at the wheel, and it has now gifted fans with the first look at the game through an early trailer.
The trailer goes to show what can only be interpreted as a post-nuke Verdansk setting, with the Stadium set to the torch and NPCs running over dead bodies to flee the drama.
Its believed that Verdansk will be the setting for the No Russian mission in the campaign, although it does seem like the landscape is only to be reintroduced for the purpose of the single-player story.
You can also see Makarov fleeing the Prison, which could see some form of Cleganebowl drama in the Gulag showers between the major characters. The new home of 1v1s.
Does Verdansk’s MW3 missions mean it will be a Warzone map again?
According to leakers, Verdansk’s only return as a Warzone map will be through the upcoming Mobile title. However, Call of Duty interestingly did try and tie in the first iteration of Warzone to the lore of the campaigns, with each season continuing the storyline to blow up the stadium and eventually the map.
If Verdansk does appear in the Modern Warfare 3 campaign in a stable state at some point after this mission, it could actually open the door for its canonical return to Warzone too, given the alternate timelines. Then again, the Call of Duty timeline is a mess.
There’s the rebooted series and the Zombies aether story now intertwining the two main CoD sub-franchises, so canon might not be the best hope for fans. So far, Verdansk is not supposed to be coming back for Warzone, and Las Almas will be the next large-scale battle royale setting, coming later in 2023.