Modern Warfare community lashes out at Activision for Black Ops Cold War merge

Brad Norton
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With the excitement of the new release taking up the spotlight, Modern Warfare players feel as though their experience has been “actively” made worse in order to promote Black Ops Cold War.

With the annual cycle of the CoD franchise, a new release is guaranteed around November each year. Typically, this sees a vast majority of the player base relocating over to the new title. However, the transition from 2019 to 2020 was a little different.

For the first time in history, two titles merged thanks to Warzone. The F2P battle royale gave a common ground for both games to come together. Though with the focus primarily on new weapons from BOCW in Season One, the MW community feels it’s been left behind.

While a lack of new content and meaningful updates would be one thing, thousands of players argue the impact of BOCW is “actively making MW a bad experience.”

Activision explains Black Ops integration in Warzone
With titles merging for the first time in CoD history, the MW community feels it’s been left behind while BOCW takes the spotlight.

With the integration of BOCW in Warzone, it’s safe to say that new weapons have dominated the conversation. From the controversial DMR to the must-pick MAC-10 SMG, these powerful guns are all but necessary to stay afloat. As a result, “MW players suffer simply to drive sales” for the new title.

Infinity Ward’s time handling post-launch content has reportedly come to an end. With a lack of new playlists, “hackers galore, no anti-cheat, and no feedback from [developers],” nothing can be done except to “wait for the next game.”

One of the biggest talking points is the fact that MW heavily advertises BOCW in-game. Despite the CoD community often moving ahead with the new title each year, MW players wanting to stick with their favorite title have been ‘punished,’ according to the community.

Countless players chimed in with their own experiences since the release of BOCW. Most of which echoed the same sentiment. “Starting to feel like this game has been abandoned,” one player said. “We should be on Season 8 for MW,” another added.

Warzone gameplay
With BOCW guns now leading the Warzone meta, will MW guns ever be bumped back up to the forefront?

Regardless of which side you fall on, there’s no denying we’re in a new era for the franchise. Two games have never merged quite like this before and with Season Two on the way, this coexistence doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon.

There’s no telling if sizeable updates will hit MW throughout 2021. Though with the focus now well and truly on BOCW, it seems less likely with each passing day.


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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