Already sick and tired of those regular "on-disc" maps for Call of Duty: Black Ops? Then you've played those maps way more than I have. But you're in luck! We have a date for the first downloadable Map Pack for Black Ops. Revealed on Major “My name is Larry” Nelson’s Xbox podcast, the new “First Strike Map Pack” will launch on the Xbox 360 come February 1st, a little less than three months after the game’s November launch.
And yes, thanks to that neat little deal signed between Activision and Microsoft, you’ll be seeing these new maps first on the 360 and then later for the PS3 and PC. There’s no specific timeframe indicating just how long the Map Pack will remain a 360-exclusive, but if the Modern Warfare 2 Map Packs (which also debuted first on the 360) are any indication, then we’re looking at a one-month window, at the very least, between the releases of these maps on other systems.
== TEASER ==In fact, if you've bought either of the previous Modern Warfare 2 map packs, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the first DLC for Black Ops; “First Strike” features, like the Resurgence and Stimulus packs, five new multiplayer maps for $15—sorry, I mean, “1200 Microsoft Points.” Four of the included maps are for the standard Call of Duty competitive multiplayer modes, while the fifth is a new area for the Co-op Zombies mode.
Two of those four maps are repurposed levels from the single player campaign; “Discovery” takes place in an arctic research station that’s completely different from those other multiplayer maps featuring arctic research stations, while Kowloon sees player-on-player action back in urban Hong Kong.
The other two maps, however, are based on locales not yet seen in Black Ops. The first, “Berlin Wall” set near the famed division between East and West Germany, will help us discover just how many explosive RC-XDs you need to tear down that wall. The 4th map, Stadium, trades the cities, jungles, and nuclear testing facilities of the other multiplayer maps for an American Hockey Rink. Hopefully, players will be able to trade out their knives for hockey sticks, earning extra COD Points by checking enemies to death.
So, Black Ops players, will you have finally had your fill of Nuketown when the "First Strike Map Pack" launches on February 1st?