Map guide · November 2026 update
Shards Reworked: What Changed and Where the Cover Went
Same caps, same spawns, different islands. We compared the old and new Shards island by island, and looked at the first battles played on it.
The November update reworked Shards. The in-game description changed with it: the old map promised “extremely narrow straits combined with large islands”, the new one “separated island formations combined with open engagement zones”. Here is what that means where you actually fight.
“The Shards map has been reworked to provide more strategic possibilities and improve overall gameplay, namely readjusting some of the island terrain.”
Wargaming, November Update: Black Ships on Dark Seas, 29 October 2026
1. The battle plan didn’t move
Everything that sets up a Domination game is where it was:
- Same size: 42 km across, the full map is the play area.
- Same caps: A in the south-west, B in the centre, C in the north-east, on the same diagonal, the same size, and they still take 60 seconds to capture.
- Same spawns: one team starts in the north-west, the other in the south-east, so both teams are still equally far from every cap.
- Who you meet: it now comes up in random and co-op battles from tier VI to Legendary, Domination only.
So the openings you know still apply. What changed is the cover around them.
2. The flank caps opened up
On the old map, small islands sat right inside caps A and C, so a capping ship could hide between them. Those are gone. The rework clears the inside of both flank caps and puts the islands in a ring just outside the circle instead.
| Land | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Inside cap A | 7.7 km² | 3.4 km² |
| Inside cap C | 6.7 km² | 3.4 km² |
| Inside cap B | 6.2 km² | 6.2 km² |
| Ring 3.6–6.6 km around A | 19.4 km² | 22.1 km² |
| Ring 3.6–6.6 km around C | 14.9 km² | 19.3 km² |
| Ring 3.6–6.6 km around B | 8.3 km² | 13.2 km² |
“Inside” counts land within the cap circle, including islands that cut into its edge.
- Capping A or C is more exposed. A ship sitting in the circle has less to park behind, and the islands that do give cover are now on the edge, where the defenders can use them too.
- The fight for a flank cap moves to its rim. Expect cruisers and destroyers to hold the islands around the circle and shoot into it, rather than sit inside.
- B plays as before up close. The two islands either side of the centre cap are untouched, but there is more land a little further out, so ships pushing towards B from either spawn have more to hide behind on the way.
3. The spawns have cover now
Both spawn areas used to be open water with one small island each. Each now has a proper island group: about 10 km² of land in the north-west spawn (was 2.3) and 8 km² in the south-east (was 2.6).
- Battleships that hang back have somewhere to angle and hide instead of sitting on open water for the first minutes.
- Destroyers rushing the far side of the map will find more islands between them and the enemy spawn.
4. Fewer islands, more open water in between
- 23 islands instead of 26, a little bigger on average, and about 5% less land overall.
- The open lanes are wider. The most open stretch of sea now lets you sit 16 km from the nearest island, up from 13 km.
- Less low ground. Low, flat land makes up 28% of the island area, down from 37%, so more of each island stands tall enough to block shells and line of sight.
- The big shoreline in the north-east and south-west corners is unchanged.
Same caps and spawns; the islands have moved from the middle of the flank caps to the edges, and into both spawns.
5. Are players playing it differently yet?
Too early to say. Debrief has 34 battles on the old Shards and only 3 on the new one so far, and three games can’t show a change in how people play. For the record, here is how they compare:
| Per battle (median) | Old Shards (34) | New Shards (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Battle length | 12:02 | 12:54 |
| First cap taken | 3:08 | 2:55 |
| First ship sunk | 3:25 | 2:59 |
| Ships sunk | 12 | 14 |
| Time spent within 1 km of an island | 37% | 35% |
| Time spotted (all ships) | 59% | 62% |
| Torpedoes launched | 23 | 17 |
Old Shards: battles from before the 2 November update. A battle recorded by more than one player counts once.
Nothing in the table is outside what three random games would give you on the old map. The things to watch as more battles come in:
- How long caps A and C take to fall, and whether the first cap goes to whoever holds the islands on its rim.
- Where battleships spend the first five minutes, now that the spawns have cover.
- How often games end on points rather than on time, if the open lanes make for faster trades.
Watch the first battles on Debrief
Free, no login:
- Tier VIII win on points at 13:29.
- Tier VII win on points at 12:18.
- A loss that went to time, 12:54.
How these numbers were made
We measured the island layout of both versions of Shards on the same grid, and every figure above compares the two directly. Battle numbers come from Shards replays uploaded to Debrief: 34 unique random battles before the update and 3 after. Time near islands covers every ship in the battle from the one-minute mark; time spotted covers every ship while it was afloat.
Played the new Shards? Upload the replay to Debrief to see it on the new map, and to add it to the next count. We’ll update this piece once there are enough battles to compare.