No game is perfect. That much is obvious. People can and will have countless gripes about Call of Duty, especially in Warzone. Watch any of DrDisrespect’s streams and he’ll regularly berate the audio make-up of the game and how enemies regularly just appear in front of him after sprinting around him for the last 5 seconds with no footstep noises.

Realistically however I can’t see that changing as that would require a great deal of work that would mean peeling back the code in some way. The following things are elements that I do believe need to change about the Battle Royale, for the sake of everybody involved.

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Glitches

I know that keeping a game/series as big as Call of Duty running smoothly is no easy feat. With a player base that stretches into the millions, it is inevitable that random bugs and glitches will slip through the cracks (speaking somewhat from my own experience in video game quality assurance, testing every possible permutation on a game that’s a fraction of COD’s size is both impossible and impractical).

Taking all that into account, having games where players can become invisible, with people running around the gas during the opening circle with infinite stims (something that’s reared its head 3 times now over the lifespan of the game) and people duplicating Juggernauts is kind of unacceptable (in my view) from a company that makes billions of dollars from this series alone in a single year, and is one of the biggest publishers in the industry.

Activision has ample manpower and resources to be able to stay on top of their game, and need to have a better handle on responding to broken elements of the mode.

Also getting a black screen after a win is really annoying.

Skill-based Matchmaking (SBMM)

Matching up similarly skilled players so that people who are more casual players don’t get stomped hard by eSports professionals when they’re just trying to get in a few games with their friends on a weekend sounds like an obvious and great idea in theory. When you get into the minutia of this concept, it quickly becomes apparent that this theory results in everyone having a frustrating experience.

If everyone gets to put in lobbies where every competitor in the same skill level, their kill/death ratio will average out at 1.00. So, you’ll rarely do well, but you won’t get decimated by players using superior CoD Warzone accounts. This leads to players never making (or at least feel like they’re not making) any progress unless they play out of the minds game after game. Most games will be one step forward, one step back.

Many fans of the game have been vocal about not using SBMM as a way of aligning players, instead just focusing on the quality of the connection between everyone in the lobby. While this will ultimately lead to a wider skill distribution, it’s at least a more stable method of matching players up and means you don’t end up in games where your ping consists of triple digits.

Accurate Attachment Information

When Warzone was just an offshoot of Modern Warfare, having one set of weapons and attachments to keep in check was probably a lot

easier than what it’s become now. And credit, where credit is due, to blend what is essentially a different game into its framework, deserves its share of kudos.

There were some issues but these were more hidden bonuses as the game didn’t spell out the numbers when telling players just exactly how much an optic dampened your recoil or just how much a bigger magazine slowed your movement speed. With Cold War bringing over all its luggage and moving right on in to the pre-existing game mode, the new unique attachments for these guns are a little bit erroneous at the moment.

Thanks to the work of content creators like JGOD and TrueGameData, they’ve revealed that things like the Bruiser Grip, something that the game specifies as increasing your melee speed, actually gives you better recoil reduction than the Field Agent Grip when put on assault rifles.

To be fair, I believe the devs are aware of these issues and are currently working on a fix.

The Map

Verdansk has been the backdrop to Warzone’s frenetic action the entirety of its existence, and while there’s nothing wrong with the map in essence, I just think the environment has run its course. People are more than ready for a new full-scale landscape to explore.

Yes, there have been various subtle changes as the seasons have progressed, the subway system being something of an anticlimax and the new bunker, AKA the hole, in the middle of the airport runway becoming another place for players to loot, but the map needs a more drastic shakeup than what it’s had so far.

I myself have had a lot of fun on Rebirth Island, and I could see this being the trend for the remaining seasons, with Verdansk staying as a constant with a smaller, mini royale map changing with each season.

They don’t have to change the map completely or all at once, but swapping certain elements or having a modified mode like the night aesthetic had would be a great bit of variety.

Cheaters/Hackers

No game will ever be able to ensure its community is 100% free of individuals that use unfair tools like aimbots or pay for malicious software to gain an advantage over their competitors. Being played by so many people, COD is more prone than most to nefarious players just by the sheer number of gamers it attracts.

Raven Software/Activision relies on players reporting others when they witness anyone who has “broken the rules”, but often this has to be done on instinct. Often you’ll have to view your killcam or spectate a dubious player and then you’ll see whether their aim was just a bit too snappy or they just happened to be aiming through a wall exactly where another player was hiding.

Back in May 2020, various publishers announced a big push back against the tsunami of underhanded players by deliberately matching cheaters against each in their own lobbies so the only people they’d be against are other cheaters. However, if you’ve checked out or kept up to date with any regular Warzone streamers, they’ll usually come up against a suspicious player at least once in their broadcast.

I understand policing this issue certainly isn’t easy, but I feel Activision owes a greater element of responsibility to their players.