Warzone players slam “brutal” AMAX nerf in Season 3 Reloaded

Ryan Lemay
Infinity/Ward Dexerto

The Warzone Season 3 Season Reloaded Update has received a lot of positive feedback, but a harsh buff to the CR-56 AMAX has players scratching their heads. 

As far as weapons go, the CR-56 AMAX is a reliable Assault Rifle that offers great damage and precision. Steadily the gun has fallen out of the meta in favor of more recent Cold War and Vanguard guns.

The STG44, Cooper Carbine, XM4, and Kilo 141, just to name a few, are selected at a much higher rate than the CR-56 AMAX.

With other ARs being selected more frequently, it leads to the question of why the CR-56 AMAX was still nerfed.

Warzone CR-56 AMAX nerf branded “brutal” by players

As seen below, the Season 3 Reloaded update decreased the CR-56 AMAX’s max damage to 31 meters, down from 35 and the minimum damage decreased to 24 meters, down from 31.

A Reddit thread, from user DefunctHunk_COD, said: “The most brutal, unnecessary nerf in Warzone history? Did the AMAX deserve to be made completely useless?”

One user pointed out that “at this point, I’m convinced they’re intentionally nerfing the Modern Warfare and Cold War guns to make the Vanguard ones meta to drive sales/bundles.” The comment received over 100 upvotes.

Another person added: “Totally unnecessary and baseless nerf. The AMAX meta build now has approximately 1.2 seconds time to kill over 34 meters and even inside 34 meters the time to kill isn’t competitive at all.”

CR-56 being used in Warzone
Here’s the CR-56 being used in Warzone.

The CR-56 AMAX has not been a completely meta gun since its initial introduction in Call of Duty Modern Warfare, but like many other Modern Warfare guns, they are eventually phased out by newer additions to the game.

We’ll be the first to let you know if players ever get their wish and the CR-56 AMAX returns into the fold as a meta Assault Rife.

Though, based on recent changes, that doesn’t look likely to happen any time soon.

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.