Airborne boats, infinite money, and 'flying squirrel f*cks'—Yep, Warzone 2 sure feels like Warzone
The game may be enormous fun, but elements of the playerbase just want to find the bugs.
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 has been out for a couple of weeks now and, unsurprisingly, is bringing back a lot of Warzone vibes with the sheer number of issues players are finding. There is a necessary caveat here, which is that fanbases tend to circulate this stuff in a kind of 'end of days' mood, bemoaning how rife with hackers the game is, when in reality many glitches cannot be reliably replicated, are not widespread, and in some cases are being exaggerated for effect.
The bugs are definitely out there though, and the whack-a-mole has begun in earnest as players find exploits and the game's developers rush to fix them. Yes, players are still Superman-ing it around the place, leading this exasperated player to ask "what in the flying squirrel fuck is this."
what_in_the_flying_squirrel_fuck_is_this_god_i from r/CODWarzone
The most troubling, for obvious reasons, is a persistent crash bug that's costing players XP and progress as well as ending the game. Cheaters are also showing up here and there in Warzone 2, though some are exercising their control of the game to entertain players with flying boats.
New this past weekend is a gas mask glitch that, when certain conditions are met, will allow players to permanently camp in the poison gas (very reminiscent of the old Warzone 'infinite stim' glitch). This is very annoying and players who want to do it can google the instructions themselves: might as well make them earn something.
There do also appear to be good ol' aimbotters in the wild, as in the clip below, which is mainly of interest because Warzone 2.0 continues the use of the Ricochet system introduced to Warzone, a kernel-level anti-cheat that did seem to have a large and immediate impact on the older title's landscape of cheaters.
ricochet_working_as_intended from r/CODWarzone
Here's another fun one, though players have yet to work out what triggers it: the soldier with infinite ammo boxes.
money_dupe_glitch_huh_how_about_ammo_box_dupe from r/CODWarzone
Helicopters flying through observatory telescopes? Sure, why not.
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this_might_just_be_the_creepiest_thing_ive_ever from r/CODWarzone
Finally there's an infinite money glitch doing the rounds, alongside a host of more minor problems. The only bug I've found cropping up in my own games, which can be annoying, is enemy corpses glitching on scenery, particularly on hills. On one occasion my squad took down another squad of three and, when we went to loot them, one had glitched into the ground to the extent their backpack wasn't lootable.
All of the above should be considered in the round: this game's only been out a couple of weeks, the development studios working on the game have a track record of addressing major issues quickly, and there's not much else on the scale of launching something like a Warzone 2.0. The "lazy devs" comment is itself lazy, because you can't possibly stress-test for the impact of millions of players landing in your game and immediately setting out to try and exploit it. All of these problems do need to be addressed, but perhaps it's better to laugh at things like the flying boats and have a bit of patience as we wait for the fixes to appear.
And if it's all just making you pine for the old days, good news: today sees the relaunch of the original Warzone as Call of Duty: Warzone Caldera.
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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."