Black Ops 7's April Fools' joke is very much real: the smallest Call of Duty map in history
The only way to make a decent April Fools' joke these days is pretend you're making something totally ridiculous and then actually make that thing. That's the route Treyarch took with its seasonal goof in Black Ops 7, which it unveiled today with an X post depicting a map no larger than a single room.
"Let's get ready to start the day!" the Treyarch account tweeted. At first I took this as a playful jab at Call of Duty's love for tiny, grind-friendly maps, but I figured it'd be prudent to boot up Black Ops 7 just in case.
Sure enough, there's a new playlist today called GRWM with just one map. If you don't subscribe to beauty creators, the name refers to the "Get Ready With Me" video format where people share their morning beauty routines. Instead of showing us how Alex Mason fights forehead wrinkles, GRWM crams an 8-player free-for-all lobby into what must be the smallest map in Call of Duty history: a walk-in closet.
It's as deliciously violent as you'd expect. Observe:
As a longtime hater of small maps, GRWM still charmed me. Unlike fan favorite maps like Shipment and Nuketown, where seasoned players camp corners to exploit terrible spawns and farm kills, this closet is so comically small that there is literally nowhere safe. You're lucky to survive two or three seconds.
The best and really only strategy is to start firing as soon as you spawn, aim for corners where other players appear, and hope to rack up a five-kill streak before someone does the same to you. One could argue this is Call of Duty distilled to its purest form: a performative battle where nobody actually cares about the outcome, because all that matters is points.
I expect players will glom onto GRWM mostly for its grinding potential—I leveled up twice over a single five minute match, though that progress is partly explained by my low account level. Still, I got 57 kills, so this is probably amazing for unlocking weapons and attachments. This map is so juiced that it may only stick around for April Fools' day itself.