Yesterday, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 got their latest patch. The notes indicate the usual tweaks and bug fixes one expects of long-term live-service games, but one change to weapon ammo has fans scratching their heads. Armour-piercing ammunition, it seems, no longer (checks patch notes) pierces armour.
As expected, Call of Duty has a ton of guns for players to equip and customise. Sights, stocks, barrels, it’s all there, including ammunition. Given that Warzone in particular often sees players wearing armour, carrying armour-piercing ammo into the field has proven an excellent survival aid (especially in the DMZ). But based on the latest patch notes, the “damage multiplier against armoured opponents” has been completely removed. Now, such ammo will only do extra damage against vehicles.
Fans of the gritty war-crime simulator are pointing out the obvious: It’s odd to remove a feature something is named after…and then keep the same name. “It’s now just Ammo💀” one Redditor commented on a thread calling out the unusual shuffle in ammo stats. As many point out, enjoying a damage bonus against armoured foes seemed a fair trade for the equipment slot the armour-piercing ammo consumed. “If someone wants to use an attachment slot on AP ammo they should get more than a niche benefit from it,” reads one such comment.
Others are taking the opportunity to joke about a modification that no longer does what its description says. “In the next update: High Velocity Ammo now moves slower. Incendiary Ammo now applies freeze,” snarked one.
But it’s not all jokes. Some are wondering how this impacts enemy AI, particularly in the game’s new DMZ mode, which sometimes puts you up against large numbers of very well-armoured AI. “So now it’s misleading by its name, and with how many armoured enemies that DMZ throws at you, you’re gonna run out of ammo even faster” a Redditor commented. “It should at least help you against armoured DMZ AI opponents?” suggested another. “If [it] only helps with vehicles, then it shouldn’t have any negatives at all.”
Kotaku has reached out to Activision for specifics regarding what game modes this change affects.
It’s not all negative changes in the latest update, however. Various weapons saw tweaks to ADS speed, recoil, and bullet spread. And a bunch of bugs in the UI, progression, and directional audio were squashed. In what is hopefully a sign of more improvements to come, navigating the camo section has been improved, with new controller bumper navigation and a toggle to show/hide locked camos. Modern Warfare II’s menu system can be seriously confusing, and all the horizontal scrolling doesn’t help. This is a step in the right direction for sure.
Leave a Reply