5 Best Console Call of Duty Competitive Maps

In regards to Competitive Gaming, Console Call of Duty is a constantly changing and evolving beast. Every year the eSports community (Decerto) moves to the newly released title, vying for the top spot on a new game with new weapons, maps and tactics.

Now that the current Call of Duty active title; Modern Warfare 3, is beginning to reach the latter portions of its lifecycle, I've taken a look into some of the crowd favourite maps across both it and previous games in the series and provided my personal insight into why they made such good maps for competing on.

Crash - Call of Duty 4

I think that the vast majority of Call of Duty players will look back fondly on Crash. It was one of the standout maps from a standout title in the series, Call of Duty 4. Instantly recognisable by the downed helicopter littering the centre of the map, the towering three story building and the numerous choke points, Crash was heaven for any well positioned team.

Spawn traps and smoke grenades aplently often filled the map during play, with opposing teams trying to obtain control of the every dominant midmap / three story and hold the positions as long as possible. It's also likely that PC players will remember the Christmas rendition of Crash that was released as DLC, breathing new life into the map. Crash characterised the hectic but controlled play of Call of Duty 4 perfectly.

Scrapyard - Modern Warfare 2

Next we see a Modern Warfare 2 map hitting the spotlight. Modern Warfare 2 saw a larger degree of teams beginning to learn and understand how spawns worked in the respawn gametypes, which combined with the FMJ attachment (providing better bullet penetration through walls) allowed on weapons turned Scrapyard from a map with potential into a true test of spawn knowledge and team setup.

The reason that I really love Scrapyard personally is because of the way it looks. It's small, colourful and fairly symmetrical, with all of the buildings being thin enough for a knowledgeable player to be able to pick people off through walls consistently. 

Firing Range - Black Ops

For the third map, I picked one I expect that everybody saw coming. Firing Range was the favourite competitive map on last years Call of Duty title, Black Ops. It had almost everything that made a map great to both play and watch in an eSports scenario; balanced spawns, great choke points while still having multiple routes, power positions and a visually appealing aesthetic. Firing Range always produced tense moments in Capture the Flag, Demolition and Search and Destroy, and allowed spectacular plays. 

Havana (Black Ops)

Black Ops ranked very highly for me among the CoD titles in regards to competitive, resulting in my decision to select two maps from the Treyarch developed title. Enter Havana, our favourite Cuban High Street. It was such a great map because it managed to perfectly balance being both open and compact, providing all roles an outlet to shine through at the right moments.

Teams would fight to control spawns and once they had done so, it was often a hard fight for the opposition to make any form of comeback. I think Havana is one of the best balanced maps for pure competitive games throughout Call of Duty history, and it really shows via its popularity.

Lockdown

We can't forget Modern Warfare 3, the most recent installment in the franchise, despite arguments that it isn't one of the strongest titles in the series in regards to eSports. Modern Warfare 2 is especially criticised for its weak map design, with a small selection of viable maps.

I'd say that the best of the bunch is Lockdown, against popular opinion. Lockdown is famously one sided, with the goal on the bad spawn often being to hang on as long as possible to the draw, while pushing a full out agression on the better spawn. I feel this brings a great dynamic, forcing teams to be able to effectively attack and defend when needed and able to fight on against overwhelming odds to keep the match tied.

With Black Ops 2 nearing on the horizon, I can only hope that we can see further maps being worthy of a possible future list, providing us with further variety to the Call of Duty Competitive Scene. What maps do you feel are good enough to make the bill?