Five new multiplayer maps for Call of Duty 3 are now available (or should be available today) over Xbox Live! for a measly 800 Microsoft points. The new maps take the multiplayer back to "the old days" of Call of Duty 1 (whatever that means) with larger open maps and more urban settings. All of the maps take place in France, and all are playable with some sort of vehicle.
Battle it out in abandoned prison camp in Stalag 23. Engage in epic house-to-house fighting in a rural French village in La Bourgade. Navigate the battered warehouses and naval machinery of an oceanfront shipyard in Ironclad. Launch an all-out assault across a battleground choke point in The Crossing. Take cover in the thick trees and overgrowth of a mountaintop listening post in Wildwood.
"What"s the theme of the new maps?" Treyarch"s Dave Bunting told IGN. "The pack is called the Valor Pack, but our goal was to get back to the classic Call of Duty feel. These feel like the original Call of Duty maps. The ones that shipped with game were bigger and more open. These have more narrow places to run, nooks and crannies to hide in, and they"re better designed and controlled."
"The maps are distinctly different," Bunting continued. "We wanted to provide a wide variety both visually and from a gameplay standpoint. Champs (last week"s free map) is one of the small maps, but many online players wanted to see an infantry-based map. These five maps tend to be more infantry based, to answer the call to play more classic Call of Duty. There is a little less emphasis on vehicles, though three of the maps do have vehicles."