Black Ops Cold War's multiplayer beta has gone live on PS4 and it introduces plenty of new content.
The most exciting piece of new content is a brand new map to try out called 'Cartel'.
Cartel is a map set in the jungles of Nicaragua where players will storm a remote cartel compound.
It's alleged this is the location where a known Perseus associate has been operating in the shadows.
It gives off some very heavy campaign vibes and it certainly has a nostalgic feel that hits close to home to the original Black Ops game.
And that shouldn't be too surprising as it appears this is a reimagining of an old map that was cancelled.
Cancelled Jungle Map Returns To Black Ops Cold War
As pointed out by a few users on Twitter, the Cartel map plays well...very well...probably too well.
As I said before, the game has a real Black Ops 1 feel to it and I think we've figured out why (other than being set in the same timeframe)
Back in Black Ops 1, a Jungle map was cancelled ahead of its release.
The map 'Jungle' seems to be a map of a military base in a jungle village during a storm.
It looks a lot like the final location in the opening campaign mission for Black Ops 1 'Operation 40' crossed with the environments seen in 'Crash Site'.
The map is somewhat symmetrical with each end having a helicopter landing pad and the same shaped buildings.
Visual of the Cancelled Jungle Map
Cartel is a linear, asymmetrical, medium-sized map whereas this map seems to be smaller, symmetrical
Cancelled Jungle Map Overview
Cartel Map Overview
It was clearly scrapped quite late in development as vote icons were created.
Vote icons for Jungle Map
While it's clearly not a like-for-like replacement, it's easy to see how inspiration was drawn from this map.
While Cartel has been flattened out, the building and aesthetics are similar in style and I can see why players think it is a reimagining.
But for me, I think these two maps are not the same. The setting is definitely similar
In many ways I think Cartel is a vast improvement on what might have been and based on the looks of the cancelled map, it's probably a good thing it wasn't implemented into the game.
The map has far too many bottlenecks and spawn trapping opportunities that could make overall gameplay frustrating. It features a very head-on style with limited tactical opportunities.