Black Ops Cold War bug gives players easy wins with ‘thermal’ hack

Brad Norton
Black ops Cold War gameplay

A bizarre Black Ops Cold War Gunship bug is handing out easy wins as players are given permanent thermal vision.

It’s safe to say that killstreaks in BOCW haven’t been flawless in recent months. From random hand-outs to disappearing Care Packages and plenty more, the rewards aren’t without issues.

When it comes to killstreaks in Treyarch’s latest release, none are more powerful than the Gunship. Requiring 10,000 score, they’re by far the hardest to acquire in any multiplayer mode. For players talented enough to secure them, however, you’d expect for the top streak in the game to work as intended.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for Reddit user ‘bryanhun64’. Upon activating their Gunship, the streak was immediately ripped away from them. While they couldn’t rain down fire from above, they weren’t left empty-handed either.

Mere seconds after pulling out the laptop to control a Gunship in the sky, their character folded it away. In doing so, their screen changed for the rest of the match as a monochromatic effect took over.

As though they were still in the aircraft, the game transformed into a black and white mode with some hilarious buffs. All enemy characters were highlighted in this unique thermal vision.

Clearly an unfair advantage, they were able to secure some “easy kills through smokes” before rounding out the win on Nuketown. There’s no real telling how or why this bug came into effect, but the player certainly wasn’t complaining.

If we had to guess, it could be due to engaging with back-to-back streaks. Having just emerged from one killstreak, the player might have called in their next Gunship a little too quickly. When airspace is full, crazy things can happen.

Black Ops Cold War Gunship killstreak
The Gunship is the most devastating killstreak in Black Ops Cold War, when it works.

Obviously, they weren’t to call in missile strikes or anything of the sort, but one powerful effect of the streak did carry over. Their radar flashed all enemy locations as though they were still sitting on the Gunship.

Fortunately for the enemy team, it was all over with before long. But next time you hear a Gunship called in, there’s a good chance you might have to fend off a supersoldier on the ground instead.

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About The Author

Brad Norton is the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. He graduated from Swinburne University with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and has been working full-time in the field for the past six years at the likes of Gamurs Group and now Dexerto. He loves all things single-player gaming (with Uncharted a personal favorite) but has a history on the competitive side having previously run Oceanic esports org Mindfreak. You can contact Brad at brad.norton@dexerto.com