Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Small and Medium Map Tier List
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is arguably one of the best FPS games available right now, with some of the most satisfying shooting mechanics out there and a huge, active community. The game brings in a lot of great content from past Modern Warfare games, while still making its own innovations and keeping the formula new. Shooting mechanics and guns are at most half of what makes a great FPS great, with the other half being maps. While many of the maps that launched with the game were disparaged by the community, the addition of new maps and remastered classic CoD maps has gone a long way towards improving the map pool.
The most popular maps in Modern Warfare are consistently the small arenas designed for fast-paced, non-stop action. This is in part because people like to have an easy place to level up their guns and grind through battle pass tiers. However, even when not grinding for kills, small maps offer a level of intensity and simplicity that can be a welcome respite from slower, more tactical gameplay. Sometimes, there is nothing more refreshing than turning off the tactical part of one's brain and operating on pure adrenaline, instinct, and muscle memory.
The ideal small map should provide constant access to the action, but still have enough paths and corners that there is time to retreat and reload. It should have safe spawns and design that rewards quick thinking and outmaneuvering the enemy, but still offer plenty of quick-draw gunfights won by prediction and reaction speed. There are nine maps that currently qualify as "small" in Modern Warfare as of Season 2, with a few in this tier list reaching into "medium" territory. Each maps place in the tier list was decided based on its fun-factor in standard multiplayer gamemodes, typically 6v6 matches. The best choices for larger, slower maps as well as Gunfight and Ground War aren't discussed here.
Hackney Yard is one of the worst maps in the small to medium map pool for Modern Warfare. It is unbalanced, has truly unfortunate spawn locations, and is home to some of the most iniquitous camping spots in the game. Aerial killstreaks can devastate an entire team forced to spawn over and over again under the same cluster strike, while long sightlines make most run-and-gun streaks short lived. At the very least, Hackney Yard has three clear paths and some interesting vertical gameplay, but it is generally frustrating to get this map more than a couple times in any given Modern Warfare session.
Sadly, despite its nostalgia factor, Rust belongs in the C-Tier of Modern Warfare maps because it was never really all that good for team game modes in the first place. Rust is a phenomenal map for Gunfight and 1v1 battles, but with even just six players on each side, it devolves into a complete mess. Combined with the faulty spawns in Modern Warfare, Rust has far too many sightlines that allow one player in an advantageous position to mop up all opposition without any challenge. At the same time, killstreaks basically cover the entire map. While it might be good for those seeking to quickly rack up kills and level up their weapons, there are plenty of better maps for that purpose. Rust is a great map, just not for normal multiplayer modes.
Vacant was one of the Modern Warfare 1 maps added alongside Shipment in Season 1. Vacant works well in almost every common multiplayer game mode, and has plenty of distinct areas to engage enemies in interesting ways. Unfortunately it can't quite creep up into the A-Tier because it has a couple poorly designed areas. In particular, the rear warehouse has only two exits, making it extremely frustrating to spawn there over and over again while being mowed down in the hallway on the way out. Crash was added alongside Vacant and is in a similar boat. It has a great layout, but is extremely prone to camping due to its multitude of secluded rooftops and long alleys.
Shoot House was the first of the truly small maps added to Modern Warfare, and was a fan favorite Modern Warfare map for a long time because of it. It's a simple, basic three-lane map with limited verticality and an easy layout to get the hang of. Unfortunately, Shoot House's simplicity is also its greatest shortcoming. It was originally introduced to placate fans who were tired of the larger, more complicated maps that dominated the game in the early weeks after launch. It's a great go-to spot for quick games and fast kills, but it is also formulaic, generic, and uninteresting.
Rammaza is easily the best of the new medium scale maps added in Modern Warfare. It has relatively few camping spots, all easily flushed out from multiple angles. No matter what side one's team is spawning on, there are multiple routes to flank the enemy, but the entire layout is easy to understand. There is almost never any issue getting to the action or finding the next point of engagement. The map has no single spot that sticks out as annoying, yet still manages to be filled with cover and clever flanking routes.
Shipment is by no means a great map. Similar to Rust, its spawns are atrocious, killstreaks occupy the entire map, and there is no rhyme or reason to the flow of combat, making many game modes short-lived. All this being said, it is still the best map for one purpose: getting huge amounts of kills extremely quickly. Shipment's pure chaos has its own charm.
There is no good place to hide for long, meaning that its uncontrolled bloodshed is at least balanced. For every time the player spawns down the barrel of an enemy and dies instantly, they will pop up again behind another foe and give them the same treatment. With no regard for K/D, strategy, or even winning or losing, Shipment is the best map to level up guns, battle pass tiers, or anything else. For that reason alone, it belongs in A-Tier.
Atlas Superstore deserves a spot in a dedicated playlist. It is probably the best map currently in Modern Warfare. It is small enough that there is a clear path to the action at all times, but has safe spawns and plenty of corners to duck behind when a tactical retreat is in order. No camping spot is particularly egregious, with the two main elevated sniping spots directly facing each other. The layout is easy to understand but slow to master, and on top of it all the entire map has the fun feeling of a set of forts built in an abandoned store. Either this map should get a dedicated playlist, or the developers need to add map filtering and allow everyone to have their favorites as they please.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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