Hey Call of Duty fans, we have new downloadable content heading your way on PSN today! Collection 2 is the latest addition to Modern Warfare 3, and we want to give you a quick rundown of what you’ll receive: three new multiplayer maps (also usable in Survival mode), two Special Ops missions, and two Face Off maps. You can grab Collection 2 now for $14.99.

Face Off

Face Off is a new multiplayer experience that challenges even the most talented Call of Duty players. It distills all the fun and intensity of multiplayer into a new breed of 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 close combat. Partner up with a few friends and challenge your team skills, or go head-to-head against your most challenging opponent. With the inclusion of two additional maps for free on PSN, Call of Duty veterans can get even more of this new experience.

Getaway
Close to the shore, this place once was a tropical beach getaway boasting exotic aquariums and oversized pools, but is now a haven for ruthless run-and-gun violence. The best method of attack is to throw down a portable radar in the middle of the house, and maneuver around your opponents. Alternatively, you can kick back behind the pool and pick off heads when they pop out of doorways and windows.

Lookout
Carved into a combat-worn mountainside, this new “Face Off” map pits you against your opposition in a forward observation base littered with chokepoints and tight corridors. There are several methods of attack for you and your partner(s). Stick to high ground, whether that’s on a hill or above a base, or run guns blazing through the bases to grab that quick kill.

Erosion: Free
Make your way through Mediterranean ruins and ancient aqueducts, using leftover Roman masonry for thousand-year-old cover. As my personal favorite Face Off map, I get a kick out of leveraging the SMGs’s rapid firing rate and maneuvering as fast as I can under the archways. Taking the low ground is one way to go, or you can be the first to take the center tower and snipe opponents from above.

Aground: Free

Head to Scotland’s Orkney Islands where treacherous cliff faces, cave networks, and the rusted and ruined remains of a grounded transport ship provide for constant combat. This is definitely a map where you’ll want to pick off enemies using long range weapons — I also suggest using the Marksman perk.

Multiplayer / Survival Maps

Sanctuary
Suspended a thousand feet in the air, you’ll find yourself battling on towering sandstone monasteries in Central Greece. There are plenty of windy paths and hidden locations in which to station yourself, or you can move quickly to flank the opposition.

Foundation
This decommissioned concrete factory is located in the heart of South Korea. After decades of constructing roads and buildings, the towering facility is now a perfectly-constructed combat zone for sniping, as well as fast-paced shootouts.

Oasis
Though once a picturesque escape for vacationers, the sprawling Hotel Oasis is now a multiplayer paradise, with multiple lanes of combat built atop an ancient fortress.

Special Ops

Iron Clad
With one player manning a tank and the other escorting it on foot, you’ll clear beaches and take cover in plane wreckage as you escape Hamburg from behind enemy lines in this all-new Special Ops Mission.

Kill Switch
Cripple a Russian carrier by detonating an electromagnetic pulse. Be the soldier on the ground, making your way to the detonation site, or play the sniper providing vital cover fire from a vantage point high above the city.

PlayStation is partnering with Activision to pair the blockbuster and record-setting video game franchise Call of Duty along with the best console for core gamers, the PS3. Today we are announcing a Limited Edition PS3 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 bundle which includes a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the hit title that set a new entertainment launch record upon its release in November, and a 320GB PlayStation 3 System, for only $299.

Right out of the box, you will have instant and free access to the action-packed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 online multiplayer experience through PlayStation Network. If you haven’t already, it’s time to join in on the action.

This is a great option for those of you who already own a PS3 or for those who want to become a part of the PlayStation family.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 1 arrives in the PlayStation Store today, and it brings with it a whole weekend of double XP. This is the biggest DLC collection in franchise history, offering four multiplayer/Survival mode maps – Piazza, Liberation, Overwatch, and Black Box – as well as two all-new Special Ops missions, Black Ice and Negotiator. That kind of content doesn’t just make itself, so I asked Mark Rubin, Executive Producer at Infinity Ward, for some insight into how the studio approaches making add-on content for MW3.

Dan Amrich: Everybody has different tastes in maps. When you put together a collection, are you trying to please different groups of fans with specific maps, or do you try to make every map have something for everyone in it?

Mark Rubin: Any map can come up at any time in any game mode, so we never want to make a map that leaves players thinking “this isn’t for me.” Even when we design a map like Liberation, which snipers enjoy with its long sight-lines, we still create areas for players who enjoy, say, close-quarter combat. The central bridge and underground bunker in Liberation are a great example of this. It’s something for everyone, but we try to really offer something of value to each subset of players.

The locales represented in Collection 1 are literally all over the map – a seaside village in Italy, a swanky neighborhood in California, and the heart of Manhattan. How do you choose where a map will be located, and does that location determine what kind of gameplay works best there?

It’s a brainstorming process. Sometimes we think about the single-player campaign and ask “What’s going on a few blocks over? What’s happening that we aren’t currently seeing?” Other times, it’s dreaming up environments that offer the most tension and danger; it’s hard to beat Overwatch for that in Collection 1 – gun battles on a skyscraper are definitely dangerous. Other times we go for locales we’ve never seen before, or something that the art team wants to try out. I’m really proud of them on this collection; it’s worth stopping and looking around a map like Piazza to appreciate just what a good job all the art teams have been doing. And every now and then, someone will go to a great vacation spot somewhere around the globe and think, “This is gorgeous – and it would be a great CTF arena!”

I know each map goes through a revision process. How long does it take to make a map, generally? And with constant iterations, how do you know when you’re done?

We start a level by prototyping the map geometry. Before we decide on a final theme or setting, it’s more important that we get the level layout locked down – it needs to flow correctly, it needs to offer a lot of interesting engagement points. And that can take several months, with playtesting and polishing. As for how to know when it’s done…it just feels right. When the team agrees, from playing it, that things feel balanced, we know it’s ready.

What makes a map fun?

Player interaction and variety. When you spawn on the map, you want to run into other people – that’s the interaction. Maps with interesting choke points and clear pathways feel very satisfying to most players, because they know they’re going to get into battles in those areas. The tight corridors of Air Force One in Black Box are a good example. Yet elsewhere in Black Box, you have completely different environments – inside fancy mansions, a few construction areas. They look and feel different from the airplane sections, and that’s where variety comes in.

Which map in Collection 1 is your favorite to play, and why?

This is like asking someone to choose between their children, and I won’t fall into that trap. I hope everybody enjoys all four of the multiplayer maps. That’s why we made them.

Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer, and Raven Software all square off in a MW3 lobby. Which studio wins?

Do you even have to ask?

Somehow I knew the answer to that last one. Content Collection 1 is available now in the PlayStation Store for $14.99, and double XP kicks in on Friday – all players, all modes. Enjoy it!

Then you hear the WHUPWHUPWHUP of rotors overhead, and your exquisite view is obscured by smoke from a nearby grenade. Sorry, pal, you’re not on vacation – you’re in the thick of the conflict, because you’re in Piazza, one of the two new Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer maps that are reaching Call of Duty Elite premium members today via the PlayStation Network. Now it’s a little slice of paramilitary paradise.

Piazza is actually going to be a big hit with fans of close-quarters combat; the tiny town features several sharp corners, tight corridors, and dangerous staircases that just beg to be explored with a Striker or P90 in hand.

Is the European coast not your style? Maybe the cold doesn’t bother you – maybe you prefer a brisk walk through New York, taking strength from the bracing temperatures while you enjoy the famous foliage of midtown Manhattan’s Central Park. But again, don’t just look at the skyscrapers – look out for the soldiers who have their MSRs trained on the map’s objectives. You’re in Liberation now, complete with winding paths, underground tunnels, and exposed Domination points. The large scale of the map makes it a playground for assault rifle experts and snipers, especially.

Piazza and Liberation are both available now for Elite premium members. If you’re one of them, all you need to do is select Store from the MW3 multiplayer menu and you’ll be invited to download the new maps for no additional cost – your Elite premium membership includes access to all the maps, modes, and surprises that are coming for the next nine months. If you’re not an Elite premium member, you’ll be able to get these two maps a little later on in the year, but an Elite subscription brings you everything as soon as it’s released on PS3. You can find more info on Call of Duty Elite here.

I need to practice a bit, but then I’ll be giving these two new maps a workout this Friday. Hope you see you online!

While the content season will contain more than 20 items overall – some multiplayer maps, some game modes, and some Spec Ops missions – the first two pieces of content in the season are a Call of Duty player’s bread and butter: multiplayer maps. The seaside village of Piazza is a perfect battleground for fans of close-quarters combat; the sharp corners, tight corridors, and stone staircases all offer compelling examples of why the word “paranoia” is the same in English and Italian.

Liberation offers more room to run, but it’s no less deadly. Enjoy the beautiful foliage, romantic footbridges, and brutal explosions as you attack the enemy centrally located park in Manhattan. Snipers will find their perches, but sneaky players will enjoy the underground passage and ample ambush cover options.

The first two maps will arrive for Call of Duty Elite premium members first on February 28th, with more content to come over the nine months that follow. If you’re an Elite premium member, you’ll get a message at the MW3 multiplayer menu as soon as the content is available to download; from there, just select Store from the multiplayer menu and the downloads will be yours at no additional charge. It’s part of the whole Elite premium package. If you want in, the details are here.

It won’t be long now before we see each other in Italy and New York. Ciao, buddy.

That said, the gap between the masters and the students is not that wide. We’re all playing for the same reason – Call of Duty games are fun, that’s all. I’ll always take an opportunity to learn and improve, but even when I get my ass handed to me online, as long as I enjoy the company of the people I’m playing with, I’m more likely to leave a session laughing, regardless of KDR.

This is where Call of Duty Elite comes in. Not many games have 30 million people playing them, so the idea behind Elite was to give all those players a common ground – a service that would help them connect, compete, and improve. We’re all playing together as it is; let’s play together better.

This summer, some of you may have had a chance to check out the Elite beta, which gave PlayStation 3 players an early taste of the service. The beta only incorporated data from Black Ops, but Elite’s launch date of November 8 – same as Modern Warfare 3 – is no coincidence. The beta was truly just the beginning. Well, before the beginning, if you think about it.

Check your stats. Tweak your loadouts. Analyze heat maps from all the matches you’ve played in the last month and learn what you did right and wrong. See your stats using each weapon in the game and get detailed advice on how to use it better. Track your performance and compare it instantly to that of your friends on custom leaderboards. Create a clan and Join social groups of players with similar interests. I found groups for guitars, juggling, and Ghostbusters; if you don’t see what you’re looking for, you can create your own. (You are hereby invited to join the OneOfSwords group – that one’s mine.)

All that stuff is free. No charge. Thank you for being a Call of Duty player, says Activision. Enjoy this extra stuff.

What’s more, in MW3, Elite is fully integrated into the game. Wanna change your loadout during the day for your big match that night? Just visit the website, change your settings, and it will automatically push to the game, waiting for your next login. Don’t want to use the web? Use your iOS or Android device. Just want to do it all on your console? No problem – there’s a PlayStation 3 downloadable program that you can download and use from directly within MW3. That Elite PS3 application is free. The mobile app is free. The website is free, too.

If you are a dedicated player and you want more from Elite, you can sign up for a premium membership (using the funds in your PlayStation Wallet, of course) to access a ton of extra features – most notably, you’ll get ALL of the MW3 DLC content as soon as it is released on PS3, ready and waiting for you the day it comes out. You’ll also have access to exclusive Elite TV programming to high-stakes competitions for real-world prizes (like iPads, Jeeps, and trips to Paris) to more video storage space to all the MW3 DLC that will be released, ready and waiting for you on the day it’s released. There’s a big chart that goes into all the relevant details here. And if you like what you see, anybody who activates a premium membership before November 13 will receive Founder status, which comes with its own benefits. Plus, you get to say “I was there from the beginning.”

Regardless of how you wind up using Call of Duty Elite, just remember why it’s there: to serve and unite the community of CoD players. Maybe you’re wonderful sniper, maybe you’re terrible flag runner, or maybe you’re simply a work in progress as a player. Call of Duty Elite is here to make your triumphs into celebrations, your losses into educational tools, your performance into prizes, and your opponents into your friends. After all, we all have one big thing in common.