Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Dev Says Shipment Map Was a Happy "Accident"

We haven't heard any official news about what the next Call of Duty game will be just yet, though leaks have been swirling that publisher Activision will be going back to the Modern Warfare well and releasing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. If those rumors are true, development is being headed up by Sledgehammer Games and will include all of the usual trappings of the series. That's not the only reason Modern Warfare has been in the news lately though, as a recent interview with a developer behind Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has revealed that one of the more popular maps was actually released by accident.

In an interview with Dexerto, multiplayer design director Geoff Smith said that Shipment was "truly an accident." Essentially, the story goes that the developers put Shipment into the game as a purely split-screen map, but then started to use it as a way to do internal testing. Through this, it ended up on Modern Warfare's "playlist script" and was never removed from the rotation. Supposedly they were going to take it out before the full release, but the multiplayer lead at the time "forgot." That happy "accident" turned out to be a great one for Activision as Shipment remains one of the more popular Call of Duty maps.

If you go back and look at Shipment, it certainly makes sense to hear that it wasn't really meant to be a thing. The map is very small and lacks much of the complexity that makes other maps sing. That said, the simplicity is actually why so many people love Shipment. Not only is it a great place for 1v1 battles, but the chaos it presents makes it a great place to rack up kills quickly. If you have a mission to get a specific number of kills with a certain weapon, there are not many places you can get it done faster than on Shipment.

In any case, it wouldn't be a Modern Warfare game without Shipment. It's just become one of those iconic maps that every game in that offshoot of the Call of Duty franchise seemingly has to have. If the rumors prove to be true and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 does indeed come out this year, expect to see a very small map filled with shipping containers making an appearance.