Call of Duty: Modern Warfare quietly included a new minimap in its latest update that actually shows players more of their surroundings in addition to looking different from the standard option. The new minimap came in the same update that introduced Modern Warfare’s battle royale Warzone mode.
Strange as it may sound, the minimap has been a source of controversy in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare before. While the game was in beta, the minimap didn’t show up at all until players unlocked it with a killstreak, unlike in previous games in the series where it was turned on by default. After several redesigns throughout the beta and release versions of Modern Warfare, developer Infinity Ward arrived at the minimap’s current design, which doesn’t display information about enemy positions until that capability is turned on through a killstreak. Recently, players found a clever way to track the opposing team in Cyber Attack mode, turning their enemy’s lack of a useful minimap to their advantage.
Infinity Ward previously said that it’s not changing the main functionality of the minimap by adding default enemy indicators, but a recent update did make it much more useful. In Modern Warfare’s most recent patch notes, Infinity Ward tucked a seemingly minor note that players can now choose between a square minimap or the default circle. The game’s community quickly seized on the change and determined that the square minimap shows a whole lot more of the player’s surroundings than the old circular map - 27.3% more, according to one Reddit user’s calculations.
The new minimap options will be available in Modern Warfare’s traditional multiplayer modes as well as the newly added Warzone mode. In Warzone, the minimap also gets enemy firing indicators, making the larger minimap design even more useful in the new battle royale mode. The new free-to-play mode launched March 10, and early reactions to Warzone have been largely positive despite some bugs and long wait times, with players especially enthusiastic about the Gulag feature that lets defeated players duel for the right to respawn.
While players have never been happy about the changes to the minimap in Modern Warfare, it’s clear that the current design is working as intended, and Infinity Ward is sticking to its guns when it comes to firing indicators. The new map shape options may not be exactly what players were hoping for, but it’s still a nice tweak that makes the minimap a bit more useful without compromising Infinity Ward’s design.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: Infinity Ward, Random_Days/Reddit