Warzone’s Rebirth Island And Fortune’s Keep Maps Are About To Go Away (Possibly For Good)

Warzone 2.0 is just around the corner, and that means a brand new map—Al Mazrah—and a ton of new content including the exciting new DMZ mode to explore.

However, the new battle royale Call Of Duty entry means big changes for the original Warzone, which is being renamed Call Of Duty: Warzone Caldera (previously it was changed to Warzone Pacific when the Verdansk map was shelved and Vanguard’s Caldera island was introduced).

Here’s how things are going to go when Warzone 2.0 launches on the 16th of this month:

• On November 16th at roughly 8am PT, Warzone servers will go offline and Call Of Duty: Vanguard Season 5 ends.
• About two hours later, at 10am PT, Warzone 2.0 and Modern Warfare II Season 1 will go live.
• All resources will be devoted to Warzone 2.0’s launch, which is one reason the original game has to go offline at this time. (I suspect they also want people to get off the old game and come try the new game, which makes sense).
• Quote: “Once the Warzone 2.0 ecosystem is fully stable, and after a small development break for Thanksgiving for the developers who observe this U.S. holiday, Warzone is planned to be relaunched as Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera as a separate experience. This will happen at approximately 10 AM PT on November 28.”
• In other words, don’t expect the launch to go off without a hitch. If the launch of Modern Warfare II is any indication, there will be a few, ummm, bumps in the road. Warzone will be offline for about 12 days before the servers turn back on.
• Players of the legacy Warzone will be gifted several items they can use in Warzone 2.0 but none of your Operators, guns, XP tokens etc. will transfer to the new game. This is a hard reset with all weapons and Operators tied to Modern Warfare II only.
• COD points will transfer over, however, and the Item Shop in Warzone Caldera will go dark. There will be no cross-progression between the two iterations of the game.
• Finally, when Warzone Caldera goes live once again, “Rebirth Island and Fortune’s Keep maps will not be present” according to Activision. Whether they’re gone for good remains to be seen, but the publisher also notes that for “those fans of small Battle Royale maps, expect exciting developments in Warzone 2.0 during future seasons.”

That last bit is good news, at least. As far as I’m concerned the only way to play Warzone is in Resurgence Mode, which is far less tedious and much more fun than traditional Battle Royale. This can take place on the big map also (using smaller circles like they did sometimes in Caldera Resurgence) but it’s fun to have some small maps to choose from. I think both these maps should be remastered and rereleased in Warzone 2.0 but should be part of a five or six small map rotation with several new maps to keep things interesting.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask, either.

Whatever happens, this might be your last chance to drop into Rebirth Island and Fortune’s Keep for the foreseeable future. Both small maps are going away in a week. RIP small maps.