From informal gamers to esports professionals, everybody has an issue with Gustav Cannon.
Call of Duty WW2 has been maybe the most important success the franchise has had in years. It has sat atop of the charts constantly since launch, reviews have been very positive, and only a few individuals appear to have points with it. Clearly followers have been clamouring for the jetpack period to come back to an finish, and now that it has they’re throwing their assist behind CoD WW2.
But regardless of the entire reward and good will in direction of the most recent entry within the sequence there’s one unfavourable that’s sparking loads of debate, from the extra informal gamers who play a spherical or two per week by means of to the professional gamers who make a residing from the sport. The Gustav Cannon map in multiplayer is likely one of the most controversial the sequence has ever seen, and with simply 9 multiplayer maps out there to everybody at launch many are feeling annoyed by its quirky design.
“The map is just not good,” says John “Xotic” Bruno, knowledgeable Call of Duty participant for the lately revived Lighting Pandas organisation who simply positioned within the high 20 at CWL Dallas, the primary occasion of the WW2 season. “I’m personally not a fan of that map at all. The map is just talked about from a lot of people almost as a joke. Whenever I play a public match and see that map I just leave the game.”
This sentiment is shared by lots of the professional gamers, together with those that play extra casually. It isn’t uncommon to see a Gustav Cannon map begin with one staff a participant or two down as individuals will usually give up out in the event that they don’t fancy enjoying. Even anecdotally a bunch of my common stack of gamers will moan or give up out when it comes on the rotation, though once I requested them why they do that the most effective response was “because it’s shit”. Helpful.
If even informal gamers are paying attention to the map and staying away from it then clearly there’s something, on the very least, completely different concerning the map. Over the previous few years the Call of Duty dev groups have mastered the artwork of three lane maps, and there are only a few studios that may match them by way of following this design concept. These maps will characteristic three essential lanes that can go from one finish of the map to the opposite, usually these lanes will probably be fairly straight, with smaller corridors connecting them. Take a take a look at nearly any Call of Duty map from the previous few years and you’ll spot the sample fairly shortly.
But Gustav Cannon is completely different. You might argue it nonetheless has an analogous structure in case you checked out it from above, with buildings across the exterior of the map and the cannon within the center, however the areas in between are utterly open. This creates traces of sight that span from one finish of the map to the opposite, which means lengthy ranged play is the one viable tactic more often than not and controlling these sight traces is essential.
“As a competitive player, who’s used to symmetrical, three laned maps with clear structure and fluidity, it’s not my cup of tea,” explains Ehsan “dReaL” Javed, a professional participant for Brash esports who performed on the Call of Duty World Championship earlier this 12 months. “There’s one clear power position of the map which both teams play for, that being the cannon itself. This makes the other areas and aspects of the map irrelevant. Control the cannon and you control the map, and ultimately win. With the map being so focused on that one feature, it’s very rarely fun to play.”
While there are just a few different robust areas to place your self across the map, it actually does really feel just like the cannon within the center is the be all and finish all. If you’re on there with any type of coordination together with your staff there isn’t a purpose why you shouldn’t win, except you play goal modes that pressure you off it. It is properly protected, which means these on floor degree will wrestle to hit direct photographs except you’re out of place, and with solely two essential pathways up as much as the highest it isn’t tough to take down anybody who rushes at you. Add within the map broad imaginative and prescient it provides you may you may see why it’s the greatest place to be in.
As you’d most likely anticipate the map just isn’t utilized in skilled competitors in any respect. The Call of Duty World League ruleset dictates which maps and modes are performed on the elite degree and Gustav Cannon is nowhere to be seen. This isn’t even a current change, just about since day one professionals knew this is able to be the case, and even sport director Michael Condrey joked about the potential of together with it within the map pool on Twitter. In the previous now we have seen some maps that have been initially overlooked of the pool added later into the season, however this appears impossible for Gustav Cannon.
“I don’t believe we will see it in pro play as it doesn’t allow a platform for the better team to win,” says Javed. “With an unsymmetrical map [like Gustav Cannon], it provides a degree of randomness. By keeping the three lanes and symmetry it keeps variables as fair as possible to provide a platform to demonstrate the skill gap between teams.”
It was a courageous transfer from Sledgehammer to strive one thing like this, particularly as WW2 launched with the bottom map depend in years. However, with the tip of the jetpack period it was considerably refreshing to at the least see them attempting new issues even when it didn’t work out amazingly properly by most accounts.
Interestingly, regardless of the map being very completely different it does have just a few similarities to some maps from the previous three years. With the superior motion choices loads of maps in Advanced Warfare, Black Ops III and Infinite Warfare featured bigger open areas with much more verticality, which mainly describes every little thing about Gustav Cannon. Even so, this map would nonetheless have been a tough promote again then.
“I personally don’t think a map like this could have worked in the jet pack era either,” says Bruno. “It would play better with jet packs, but it still wouldn’t be good.”
It appears that for essentially the most half this new map design has missed the mark fairly considerably. Pro gamers hate the map with a ardour and much more informal gamers, myself included, dislike enjoying it. That’s to not say it’s a full failure, often you should have an awesome match on the map, and it’s definitely a change of tempo from the smaller shut quarter maps, however it might have maybe been preferable to have a extra commonplace map within the rotation with simply 9 out there.
Gustav Cannon is seemingly doomed to be the issue baby of the WW2 map pool. It could be an enormous shock to see it performed competitively this 12 months and it might be a minor miracle if everybody instantly determined it was their favorite map. It definitely adjustments up the texture of the Call of Duty multiplayer that everyone knows and love, but it surely does it in a approach that makes it much less enjoyable to play for nearly everybody, with maybe the one exception being those that are attempting to hit 360 cross map no scopes with snipers. It was a courageous transfer that maybe didn’t fairly work out as meant for Sledgehammer, who didn’t reply to our interview request in time for publication, however one that the majority appear to hope just isn’t repeated additional down the road.
“I’m not a fan at all of the map so personally I’d rather not see another map like this,” says Bruno. “The map is way too open and once you get control of the middle train the game is over. There is basically nothing you can add to even make it decent. The map just isn’t a Call of Duty map.”
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