A new chapter has begun in Call of Duty: Warzone. A year and a half after the release the main map has changed in battle royale: wastelands of Verdansk were replaced with sunny locations of Caldera in the setting of World War II. Top content creators have already tried out the new map, and lots of them are dissatisfied. But why? And how the statistics of the game changed on Twitch? Let’s check it out.
What’s wrong with the new Warzone map?
Call of Duty: Vanguard — the new game in the series — was released in November, and it takes place during World War II. To match it, developers of Warzone introduced the new map: if Verdansk action is taking place in the 80s / 90s, then the battles on Caldera unfold during WWII.
Caldera is a huge island in the Pacific Ocean. The size of the map is roughly the same as Verdansk, but the landscape is completely different: ruins, beaches, palm forests and even dormant volcano. Weapons and vehicles also correspond to the era. But the fans of the game were not really happy despite several months of exciting expectations.
While players and streamers admit that the new map looks a lot prettier than Verdansk, the gameplay on Caldera is not that satisfying for the gamers. Players criticize the new location for bugs, sound problems and the need to grind a lot in order to get a strong weapon. Aydan and DrDisRespect were pretty displeased with that. Many also believe that the gameplay has become much less dynamic: and they are already proposing to increase the maximum allowed number of players on the server. However, community’s dissatisfaction did not prevent the game from growing significantly in viewership.
How has Warzone viewership grown with the release of Caldera?
Although Caldera’s official release date is December 9th, those who bought Call of Duty: Vanguard were able to play on the new map the day before that. Of course, including the majority of top streamers.
The audience for Call of Duty: Warzone on Twitch grew significantly during December 8, and this applies not only to viewers, but also to streamers. The number of simultaneously streaming channels of the game on Twitch amounted to more than 9K: this is the third result in the short history of the game, only Operation Rapid Sunder and Call of Duty: Vanguard announcement drew more streamers.
The average number of Warzone viewers almost doubled: in the first days of December the average audience of the game amounted to 60K people, but on December 8 this number increased to 135.7K viewers with 453.2K Peak Viewers.
Almost all the top content creators tried the new map of Warzone. YouTube streamer TimTheTatman became the leader with 67.2K Peak Viewers. Another YouTuber DrDisRespect is also in the top 5 with 41.9K people at the peak of the broadcast.
Among the Twitch representatives, NICKMERCS from FaZe Clan (62.4K PV) and the Spanish creator TheGrefg (56.3 thousand people) gathered the largest audience. It is noteworthy that the official Facebook Gaming channel also made it to the top: it hosted the #PLAYLOUD mini-show. As a part of that, the participants tried out the Warzone update (45.6K Peak Viewers).
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Despite the great excitement around the release of the new map, in the coming days there will be fewer viewers on Warzone broadcasts, and negative feedback from players is one of the reasons for that. Raven studio surely has some work to do.
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