Consoling the Inconsolable: CoD4 PC Gamers Get Free Map Pack

The Call of Duty IV map pack that came out this spring is finally available as a free download for PC gamers. Or at least, for those who play on PCs. Sorry console gamers.

The map pack provides a refreshing contrast to the broken down towns and bleak Middle Eastern and Russian wastelands CoD4 addicts have grown to know so well. “Broadcast,” an expanded version of a map from the single player campaign “Charlie Don’t Surf,” lets you ravage a houseplant-dotted multi-storied television station. The ghillie-friendly “Creek” offers not only a creek, but a lush (by CoD4 standards) ravine replete with a waterfall, a riverside village, and a passage through a cave. “Chinatown” lets you splatter brains over not merely dull concrete, but whimsical paper lanterns, rounded brick archways, and little shop fronts.

The new maps cost ten dollars for PS3 and Xbox, or 800 of “those gay shitty x box points,” in the words of a disgruntled YouTube commenter, but plans remained portentously unspecified for the PC. It was the last of these that really worried the gaming community, accustomed to free extras for PC games they had already paid for. As one Kotaku writer put it, “that dog just ain’t gonna hunt.”

NVIDIA explains, “This is our way of saying thanks to Activision for an incredible game and also our way to give something back to the PC gaming community.” A pat on the PC gamer back before anyone gets too upset.