Call of Duty: WWII's social hub is empty because of connectivity problems

Call of Duty: WWII's social hub isn't all that social at the moment. High player volume since launch has caused connectivity problems across all platforms, and one of the fixes has been to make Headquarters a solo experience for now, Sledgehammer Games said yesterday.

That, along with deactivated leaderboards and a couple of performance updates, appears to have fixed the problems, Sledgehammer said. Although clearly it's not ideal—HQ is supposed to be a place where you can face off in 1v1 skirmishes, eyeball other player's outfits and...ahem...watch people open loot crates. "Headquarters will return to its fully-populated, shared experience shortly," the developer said. For now, you can still invite friends into the HQ so you're not completely lonely.

The connectivity problems also caused some players to lose ranks, which isn't ideal. The "vast majority" lost five ranks or fewer, Sledgehammer said, which at lower ranks is less than an hour of playtime. Still annoying, though, and the developer said it is "committed to making it up to the affected players", so watch this space.

For what it's worth I played the game's multiplayer for a few hours last night and it was basically lag-free, save for one game in which I was rubber-banding quite badly. I'm sure that more fixes are incoming over the next few weeks as Sledgehammer continues to tune the game up.

James' review of the shooter is live here, so go and have a read.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.