We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

MW3 Season 3 remasters a Call of Duty map you’ve never heard of

Six new Call of Duty maps land on PS5 and Xbox in Modern Warfare 3 Season 3, including an unexpected remaster of this forgotten COD Vanguard arena.

Modern Warfare 3 Season 3 Growhouse remaster: An image of Makarov in MW3 Season 3 and the map Sphere from Call of Duty Vanguard.

If there’s one thing Modern Warfare 3 has a lot of, it is remastered Call of Duty maps. The latest COD entry launched on PS5 and Xbox consoles with a suite of classic MW2 map overhauls, and now, MW3 Season 3 will resurrect another arena lost in the halls of COD history. However, if your memory is hazy when it comes to the Call of Duty Vanguard map Sphere, we wouldn’t blame you.

A remaster of Sphere will join the roster of MW3 maps in Modern Warfare 3 Season 3, rebranded as Growhouse. Its new name reflects Season 3’s rather potent additions to Sledgehammer’s FPS game, such as new operators in the form of Snoop Dogg and the dope-tastic duo Cheech and Chong. Aside from blowing smoke on your opponents in this new map, Sledgehammer Games details that this Vanguard locale overhaul is “smaller than Meat” (which is already a very small map) and that “the layout of this deceptively compact map is similar [to Sphere], but the environment has changed significantly.”

Either way, you’ll need to get acquainted with the MW3 meta to grind your opponents down. At first glance, you might have, just for a second, thought that COD4’s Overgrown was coming back to the divisive multiplayer game with some new polish. Sadly, that isn’t the case. Sphere originally debuted in the ill-fated multiplayer game back in Season 3 of Vanguard. Quite the full circle moment, isn’t it?

YouTube Thumbnail

The fact it is smaller than Meat is enticing, though, and we can already smell the sweat of some intense skirmishes. We’ll be equipping our best MW3 loadouts before we head into battle, that’s for sure. It continues Sledgehammer’s not-so-subtle obsession with its other Call of Duty titles, following the return of Das Haus in MW3 Season 2 Reloaded.

We also saw the return of COD WW2 mode Hordepoint recently, and we’re sure that the developer isn’t done retrofitting some of its older content just yet.

The biggest sin of Modern Warfare 3’s seasonal updates is, well, not remastering maps from the original MW3. There’s a solid collection of amazing arenas waiting for some current-gen revamps, but alas, they remain sat in the COD ether.

YouTube Thumbnail

In related news, Call of Duty’s battle royale game spin-off Warzone is reviving Rebirth Island with a few notable tweaks, and The Finals is kicking off an Easter event you don’t want to miss.