Call Of Duty: Warzone Nuke Event Rumors Gain Steam As Activision Drops Clues

Over the past few weeks, rumors have swirled that Call of Duty: Warzone will soon experience a catastrophic event that will change the face of the game overnight--and Activision has begun dropping some subtle and not-so-subtle clues pointing in that direction as well.

Activision recently released a teaser video with an in-world news report about zombies invading Verdansk. Shortly after, it sent out swag packages to content creators that referenced the "ghoul-ag" and the outside being unsafe. Together, those clues suggest zombies will overrun Verdansk, which may necessitate the use of a nuclear warhead to wipe them all out.

According to several notable leakers, this hypothetical "nuke event"--named for the nuclear warhead that was found in Bunker 11 back in 2020--will totally destroy the game's Verdansk map on March 11 to coincide with the game's one-year anniversary, clearing the way for a totally fresh locale.

That said, given that these rumors are largely based on the work and opinions of leakers, there's no way to know for sure if anything will happen on March 11. Given that other battle royale games like Fortnite have utilized terrain-changing disasters such as meteor strikes to change up their maps, it doesn't seem too far-fetched to expect Warzone to follow suit, but the exact timing is a mystery to everyone right now.

Back in February, VGC published a report that claimed that Activision would blow up Verdansk in order to transition Warzone from the setting of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to the '80s-themed Black Ops series. VGC also reported that the nuke was originally scheduled to correspond with the release of Black Ops Cold War last year, but it was delayed. That report suggested that the nuking itself would take place sometime in March or April.

Though these are all essentially rumors, leakers have purportedly dug up a surprising amount of details on the upcoming event. For example, the Call of Duty leaker ZestyCODLeaks recently posted a six-minute video clip (since removed) with dialogue lines that they claim will be added to the game in the near future. These dialogue lines seem to reference a sandbox area that will be added to the game post-blast, with support for vehicle races, safe areas, and obstacle courses.

Other lines appear to correspond with a rumored "plague mode," where players would attempt to defeat hordes of zombies as the bomb closes in on Verdansk. Zombies have indeed invaded Verdansk in recent days, with a cargo tanker crashing into the city's port and dumping the undead all over the popular drop site. A few different theories have been circulating on forums like the Warzone subreddit, with several fans saying that they believe that the zombies will slowly overtake Verdansk area by area, until the authorities have no choice but to nuke the entire city to stop the scourge.

On the Warzone subreddit, players have been fiercely debating whether or not a new map will indeed emerge in the coming days, or if the map will just change slightly to correspond with the '80s theme of Black Ops Cold War. Believers point out that popular battle royale games like Apex Legends and Fortnite both had new maps by the one year mark. Skeptics cite the continuing issues with Warzone's massive install size as evidence that no new map is going to emerge anytime soon: after all, how can they fit it onto console hard drives? That said, Warzone already added a new map back in December, though it was the compact combat arena Rebirth Island.

Regardless of what theory you subscribe to, one thing's for sure: it seems entirely unlikely that Activision would create a series of Easter eggs that led to the nuke in Bunker 11 if it didn't plan on triggering it at some point. Whether or not that will happen on March 11 remains to be seen.