There's no sign of Call of Duty's beloved Nuketown map in Black Ops 6 - except for its "birthplace" in Warzone's Area 99 and a nuked version in Sandhouse

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Black Ops 6 has all the Nuketown you could ever want, except for actual Nuketown

Warzone's Area 99
(Image credit: Activision)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 had its big multiplayer reveal today, and among all the other details one thing stood out - we're getting a whole lot of Nuketown without actually getting any Nuketown.

Nuketown is a map that goes back to the original Black Ops, and has regularly appeared throughout the series. It's based on the real-world model towns that were used as nuclear test sites, and its miniscule size means that it's one of the most action-packed maps in all of Call of Duty. It's a fan-favorite, and everybody's been wondering if we'd get it back in Black Ops 6.

Today's Call of Duty: Next event revealed that we're getting Area 99 as a new Resurgence map in Warzone, which Treyarch describes as "the birthplace of Nuketown." In a blog post, the devs show it all off in great detail, and the map will include the factory where Nuketown's mannequins are manufactured, the shipping yard where the model homes are sent out, and the test site where all those nukes were fired. 

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In traditional Black Ops 6 multiplayer, we're getting Nuketown in the form of Sandhouse, a Strike Map that'll be available at launch. The difference here is that Nuketown's been nuked. Sandhouse is made up of the ruins of Nuketown, with sand piled all over and familiar locations knocked askew by what sure looks to have been a nuclear blast. It's unclear exactly how many similarities Sandhouse has with old-school Nuketown in terms of map layout, but you can get an idea of what to expect with the few seconds of footage in the video below. 

Traditional Nuketown won't be part of Black Ops 6 at launch, but there's no telling if a more familiar version of the map might be added sometime later on. Certainly, with Area 99 and Sandhouse serving as such effective nostalgia bait, we're well primed for a proper Nuketown comeback.

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Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.