Warzone 2 players slam “horrible” UAV nerf in Season 3 Reloaded

Ryan Lemay
A UAV killstreak in Warzone 2.

UAVs became more accessible in Warzone 2 after the Season 3 Reloaded update but also received a substantial nerf.

Season 3 Reloaded made a few drastic gameplay changes for Warzone 2. Infinity Ward improved mobility by increasing sliding and mantling speed and slowed down the time-to-kill in close-range engagements. Both highly requested changes should make moving around the map easier and firing back in gunfights less of a struggle.

The mid-season update also added lootable perk packages and deployable buy stations. Having access to important items at any period of a match will go a long way in improving the flow of matches.

Unfortunately, not every change received glowing reviews, as a nerf to UAVs aggravated WZ2 community members.

Warzone 2 players question need for UAV nerf

ModernWarzone shared three UAV changes coming to every Warzone map and mode. UAV pings will now only emit from the player who activated the UAV. If the player who called in the UAV dies, the UAV will stop, and using three UAVs will still upgrade the signal into an advanced UAV.

This goes hand-in-hand with a buy station change. The price of UAVs is now 6,000$ instead of 4,000$, but buy stations will carry an unlimited amount of the killstreak instead of one.

In the Season 3 Reloaded blog, the developers claimed: “We felt that, like all killstreaks, the killstreak should come from the player who calls it in so when players hear enemy UAV overhead, they know that the total radius covered is a fixed, known quantity across all modes.”

This change requires a little more explanation. The ping of a UAV extends 300 meters. When a player uses a UAV, the ping will only stay within that range of the user. If a teammate is out of that range, they will no longer get a UAV ping. The teammate will only see the ping from the player who used the UAV.

Community members slammed the design choice.

One player responded: “They really love embracing the one step forward, two steps back approach with Warzone 2.”

A second user added: “Reinventing the wheel for no reason whatsoever. I’m constantly flabbergasted.”

Hopefully, this change will end up making a positive impact once players get used to it in Warzone 2.

About The Author

Ryan is a former games writer for Dexerto. Ryan graduated from Ithaca College in 2021 with a sports media degree and a journalism minor. He gained experience as a writer for the Morning Times newspaper before joining Dexerto as a games writer. He mainly writes about first-person shooters, including Call of Duty and Battlefield, but he is also a big FIFA fan.