What you need to know
- The big Black Ops 6 update to Call of Duty: Warzone has arrived, and lots of players aren't happy with it.
- One of the biggest pain points surrounds audio, with improvements made during Modern Warfare 3 seemingly just not brought into this latest version.
- PC players are plagued with significant performance degradation over the previous version, though there are also quality of life improvements that are enjoyed, such as Omnimovement.
I'll start this off by saying I'm not really a Warzone player. I've played a lot of Call of Duty over the years, and I'm already well over 100 hours deep in Black Ops 6. But November 14 was the start of Season 1 in the latest title, and the much-awaited integration of the battle royale mode with it.
Unfortunately, it's not entirely gone down well. While there are many positives, such as the inclusion of Omnimovement, and the new Area 99 map seems to be popular, there are some significant issues that hinder the overall experience. Particularly on PC.
This Reddit post highlights some of the major complaints.
One of the worst integration updates we ever had... from r/CODWarzone
Opinions on weapon balance and menu items and such will always be divided. But there are two significant issues that are affecting folks just playing and enjoying the game.
Performance on PC compared to the MW3 version of Warzone seems to be worse. Not just a little worse, but significantly worse. Some players are reporting frame rate drops as large as 30-40%, which is outrageous.
While this only affects those on PC, a change that hits everyone for the worse is with the audio. I don't have any first-hand experience of this, not having played Warzone last year, but the short version is that a number of improvements from the previous Warzone just haven't been brought into this one.
The video below from TheTacticalBrit outlines the issues with audio (and other aspects of Warzone) exceptionally well.
It's also pretty disappointing that the map seems to have regressed to a lesser version, too, and there certainly sound like being issues with the draw distance. But for most people, the audio is going to be the biggest pain point. After all, in a battle royale, being able to hear footsteps and engagements around you accurately is critical. Warzone isn't the run-and-gun you get from regular Call of Duty multiplayer.
On a positive note for the sounds of Warzone, it seems like spatial audio in itself is very good, but the issues with not being able to hear footsteps over your own characters sounds, and scorestreaks being heard from miles away, all take away from the good bits.
Of course, all these can be fixed, you would hope. But it's not a good look, given the popularity of Warzone, and the pretty good reception that Black Ops 6 has had so far. The campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies modes are all enjoyable, so it's disappointing that the big arrival of Warzone has fallen on its face.
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