Treyarch Confirms First Call of Duty: Black Ops Map Pack For February

The first map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops will arrive for Xbox 360 on February 1 next year, said Dan Bunting, director of online and Activision-owned developer Treyarch in a podcast with Xbox Live's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb. The new downloadable content is dubbed First Strike, and will sell for $15 on Xbox Live, where it will arrive first, Bunting said. First Strike will have four multiplayer competitive maps, including "Berlin Wall," the abandoned Antarctic research station map "Discovery," the rooftop map Kowloon and the Northeastern U.S. hockey rink-based map "Stadium." There will also be a new zombie mode map titled "Ascension." "On this map pack, we focused a lot more on providing variety of weaponry, variety of engagement ... [and] a lot more verticality, bringing some sniper opportunities to it," said Bunting. Call of Duty's map packs have proven to be big success stories for publisher Activision. The last franchise map pack was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Stimulus Package from this year, developed by Infinity Ward. At $15 per pack, it sold 2.5 million units on Xbox 360 in the first week of availability, and one million on day one for PlayStation 3. In April, the success of the map pack drove Activision to raise its fiscal outlook, reflecting the growing financial impact of DLC for the publisher.