A shell drops a few feet before me, masking my vision with dust and smoke. I can barely see what’s happening in the confusion and chaos that fills every corner of Call of Duty’s Shipment map.
I drop to the floor as fast as possible, landing in a pile of shredded bodies and shooting back at my enemies; people are walking over me, around me, but no one can figure out where my bullets are coming from. I feel like I’m invisible, and boy, that’s good on a map where there’s nowhere to hide.
“Be the snake,” I whisper to myself as I slowly crawl around the blood-soaked claustrophobic map, slithering from one pile of dead bodies to the next, bullets between allies and enemies pinging back and forth overhead.
Was this very sportsmanlike of me? No. Did I have fun doing it? Not really. But none of that matters in the grand scheme of things, because I got a 3.0 K/D on Shipment, and it was the first Call of Duty map I had played for a while that didn’t make me want to put my head through my monitor.
Contained madness
Shipment is one of Call of Duty’s oldest maps, recreated and re-released in multiple games since it was first introduced way back in Modern Warfare 4 in 2007, and I think it’s just as beautiful as the day I first saw it.
There’s nowhere to hide unless you’re a snake, of course
As it stands today, Shipment has had a vibrant redesign. Set on a ship in international waters, the small square map is tightly surrounded by towering walls of cargo containers. Containers in the center of the map create a crisscross of corridors and sightlines. Opposing teams are deployed on opposite corners of the map and fight tooth and nail for ultimate victory.
Shipment is my favorite map in the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Remaster. It encapsulates everything I need from Call of Duty; chaotic hellfire. It’s such a small map that there’s nowhere to hide unless you’re a snake, of course, because an enemy is waiting around every corner. It’s a great way to earn XP with quick kills, but the intensity of being surrounded by enemies at all times and being in almost constant combat is just as frustrating as it is satisfying.
Bigger problems
I love Shipment all the more because I can’t stand some of the new maps introduced in the Modern Warfare 2 Remaster. It seems like Activision’s designers have gone for size over substance. I’m looking at you, Taraq.
Set in a bombed Middle Eastern city, Taraq is made up of open city streets hemmed in with walls and overseen by a bell tower and a few two-story buildings. It’s a sight to behold, but it does my head in. The map is far too big, making it easy to lose sight of the fight. And with the open streets, you’re more likely to get shot in the head by a sniper you’ll never see than die in a close-quarters blaze of glory. I ran around the map twice, looking for people, only to get a missile dropped on my head.
New maps Crown Raceway and Zarqwa Hydroelectric have their own problems. Both maps are fast-paced, but they are so big that whole teams can camp in single rooms or hide in the corners of the map. Where’s my chaotic bloodshed?
You may not share this feeling. But the close-quarters fighting is what I grew up with, so it’s what I look for in Call of Duty. If I wanted open landscape combat, I’d look to a game like Battlefield, or boot up Call of Duty’s Warzone mode.
It's a tricky balance, but for now, I’m just happy to have the intensity of Shipment at the click of a button, and I’ll play the rest of the maps graciously. Except for Santa Sena Border Crossing, that map is the bane of my existence; if you know, you know.
