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We’re still getting stuck into Call of Duty: WW2, but tucked away in the game’s Normandy Beach social space is a bizarre esports treat: the 1v1 pit.
The Pit, situated out on the beach and sealed in from the player-soldiers running around on the beach by impassable wooden barriers and mounds of dirt, looks unassuming if you’re looking for the nearby emblem creator, or perhaps watching someone open a series of loot boxes on the beach.
However, take a closer look and you’ll see a hidden game mode, which pits players in a one on one battle for supremacy while bored soldiers try to peek over the palisades at the unfolding carnage. The match follows the classic 1v1 protocols: both players, equipped with a single weapon, fight in a small arena to be the first to get three kills.
Players sign up by going to the whiteboard alongside the pit, putting themselves in a queue to battle, during which they’ll mill around and watch those currently competing. When it’s your time to throw down, you and your opponent are each offered a selection of three weapons, with each of you given an option to ban one. Whichever is left is the weapon you’ll have to face off with.
The fights here are tense, a far cry from the chaotic whirlwind of a usual Call of Duty match, and an unexpected treat for fans of watching people try to shoot each other. We’ll be getting more in depth with Call of Duty: WW2 in the coming weeks, but for now this is the sort of thing I’d love to see more of in games, and this could be a great opener at events like the CWL Dallas Open. Hopefully Activision do more with it.
