Exclusive: Call of Duty devs reveal Shipment\u2019s genesis was \u201ctruly an accident\u201d ActivisionShipment, one of the Call of Duty series\u2019 most iconic maps, was \u201ctruly an accident,\u201d devs told Dexerto in a recent interview, as they simply \u201cforgot\u201d to remove it from the launch build before Modern Warfare launched around the globe. When it comes to the most popular maps in CoD history, everyone has their favorites. Whether it\u2019s Strike or Slums for the competitive fans, Highrise or Terminal for the quickscopers at heart, or Nuketown for the more casual crowd, we all have our go-to picks. But there\u2019s no denying Shipment is often the first to spring to mind for many veterans in the community. Since its debut in 2007\u2019s Modern Warfare (the first one), it\u2019s been among the most important maps in the franchise. Along with Rust in the years following, it arguably became the hottest spot for 1v1s. If feuds ever needed to be settled, this dreary, minuscule layout is where you\u2019d go to war. Though it turns out, developers at Infinity Ward never actually planned for Shipment to be this popular. In fact, the now-fan-favorite map wasn\u2019t even supposed to see the light of day, at least not in its existing form. As Multiplayer Design Director Geoff Smith told us in a recent conversation, Shipment was \u201ctruly an accident.\u201d Shipment was never meant to be Modern Warfare\u2019s most iconic map As our recent interview was winding down, we pushed two senior multiplayer devs to name their own favorite maps spanning the past two decades. Joking it was simply \u201ctoo personal a question,\u201d Smith instead delved into the backstory of one particular map many would put forward as their personal favorite: Shipment. \u201cThere\u2019s little happy experiments. Things that worked out, things that didn\u2019t work out for whatever reason. I think the bane of my existence is Shipment.\u201d Originally, Shipment was designed purely as a \u201csplit-screen map, back when that was a thing,\u201d Smith revealed. The smaller plot of land, the simpler geometry, the more basic layout, all of it was purpose-built to accommodate players as their old TV screens were sliced in half. During Modern Warfare\u2019s development, however, devs used this playspace for some internal tests and thus, it found its way onto the game\u2019s broader \u201cplaylist script.\u201d From there, it was simply never removed. \u201cOur MP lead at the time, when we went live, forgot to [pull] it out and there was no going back. That was truly an accident.\u201d Modern Warfare hit store shelves in 2007 with one more map than what Infinity Ward originally planned. Had devs remembered to double-check the playlist script at the final hour, there\u2019s no telling what may have become of Shipment. Perhaps it would\u2019ve struck a chord with the select few enjoying split-screen, but there\u2019s every chance it could\u2019ve ended up as another CoD map lost to time. 16 years on and with five other appearances in mainline CoD titles since, it has no doubt blossomed into one of CoD\u2019s most popular battlegrounds ever. A happy accident if ever there was one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exclusive: Call of Duty devs reveal Shipment\u2019s genesis was \u201ctruly an accident\u201d ActivisionShipment, one of the Call of Duty series\u2019 most iconic maps, was \u201ctruly an accident,\u201d devs told Dexerto in a recent interview, as they simply \u201cforgot\u201d to remove it from the launch build before Modern Warfare launched around the globe. When it comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}