Invisible players are slaughtering everyone in Call of Duty: Warzone (Updated)
Didn't see that one coming.
Update: To respond to the widespread exploit in a timely fashion, Raven Software announced on Twitter that the new attack helicopters have been disabled on both Verdansk and Rebirth Island. "The vehicle will return once the related issues have been fixed. The normal helicopter will remain available." You may now return to your normal battle royale-ing without fear of gun-toting ghosts.
Original story: Call of Duty: Warzone's much-hyped Season One has now launched, and sadly it wasn't long before players identified a new exploit. The update added an attack helicopter to the game, and following certain steps around this allows players to trigger a state of invisibility for themselves. They can still see, move and shoot as normal but, outside of audio cues and the minimap, other players just can't see them.
Fair warning: if you're going to watch any of these clips, Warzone streamers are noisy at the best of times, and when they're being killed by a game-breaking exploit things get even louder.
im... speechless... pic.twitter.com/qtSUYL8ThHDecember 16, 2020
The problem appears fairly widespread: a large number of Warzone streamers are posting clips of the bug, and the Warzone subreddit has a huge thread of players detailing their run-ins with invisible players. The most amusing account is of a game coming down to a 1-vs-1 featuring two exploiters, who of course couldn't see each other to finish things off. I'd like to have seen that: except, of course, you couldn't.
New invisible glitch in Warzone - Verdansk is haunted! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/5kLQuDaBioDecember 16, 2020
The silver lining to this otherwise-imperceptible cloud is that invisible players can still be seen on the minimap, and can still be run over with vehicles. As eventually happened in this case.
LMAOOOOO HE LOST THE GAME, LOOK HOW HE DIED pic.twitter.com/pt84sjNELSDecember 16, 2020
Ahhhh... *sniffs air* I love the smell of justice in the morning.
This is far from the first problem with Warzone glitches: this community has been through Infinite Stims and the omnipresence of nasty little cheaters. PC Gamer has contacted Activision to ask when a fix might be incoming, and will update with any response. Meantime the best thing to do is just take out attack helicopters: easier said than done, but probably preferable to fighting an invisible army.
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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."