Treyarch has been forced to temporarily remove Sub Base Hardpoint from the Modern Warfare 3 Ranked Play pool for a second time.
Season two brought wide-sweeping changes to the competitive CoD scene in early February. For MW3 Ranked Play, Rio replaced Skidrow in Search and Destroy and knocked Terminal out of the Hardpoint rotation. And despite CDL pros testing out the new BP50 and RAM-9 weapons, Treyarch banned both weapons from Ranked Play, along with a few other ARs and SMGs.
As part of the seasonal update, Sub Base Hardpoint was also added back to the Ranked Play map rotation after being initially removed because of an exploit. But just a few days after the patch went live, another game-breaking issue forced the devs to remove the map again.
Why was Sub Base Hardpoint removed from MW3 Ranked Play?
On Feb. 12, Treyarch announced the map’s temporary status. “Sub Base Hardpoint has been temporarily removed from the Ranked Play Map Pool while we investigate a new Hardpoint P3 exploit with our partners,” Treyarch said.
Ironically, an exploit on the same Hardpoint hill was why the devs first removed Sub Base in January. But instead of standing on a pipe in the corner, players discovered a new spot at the bottom of the stairs, making it possible to contest the third Sub Base hill inside a building.
Without Sub Base, that leaves Karachi, Invasion, Skidrow, and Rio as the only active remaining Hardpoint maps in Ranked Play. Community members wanted the new season two maps Departures and Vista also added to the mix, but Call of Duty League senior manager Spencer Peterson claimed there wasn’t enough time to test both maps out before the next stage of pro matches begin.
In saying that, Peterson didn’t rule out either map getting tested out in Ranked Play before officially getting added to the CDL.
The devs did not provide a timeline for when Sub Base will be added back to the map pool, but players can track the investigation’s process on MW3’s official Trello board.
