The worst Modern Warfare 3 bug yet means I can't freaking unlock anything

modern warfare 3 campaign ghost makarov — (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been out less than a week and my unlocks have slowed to a crawl. Some of that can be attributed to Sledgehammer Games' new Armory Unlock system placing hard limits on how fast players can earn select guns, attachments, and equipment, but the real holdup is an infuriating launch week bug.

The bug, which Sledgehammer Games finally acknowledged as an issue on its Trello board yesterday, causes one or more Daily Challenges to not track for some players. Were this any other year of CoD I might not have even noticed this was happening to me, but in Modern Warfare 3, completing Daily Challenges is a requirement to unlock around half of the new gear on offer.

For instance, to unlock my personal favorite throwable, the Drill Charge, I have to earn three Armory points by completing three daily challenges. You get three dailies per day, and after that Armory points can be earned by winning matches. The problem is, if one of my Daily Challenges is broken and I can't complete it, I'm stuck. That entire progression tree is halted for the rest of the day, and I just have to hope it works tomorrow. Unfortunately, this has happened to me almost every day since the game launched, and it's driving me up the wall.

modern warfare 3 daily challenge broken — The game thinks I haven't gotten 25 aim-down-sight kills and, let me tell you, it's frustrating. (Image credit: Activision Blizzard)

Fingers crossed that Sledgehammer gets a fix for this out the door soon—considering the studio's blistering pace for hotfixes so far, it could be fixed this time tomorrow—but if this is happening to you, there are some helpful alternatives. Zombies has its own Daily Challenges that contribute to Armory Unlocks as well. They're usually easier than the PvP challenges, if occasionally more time consuming, and they've yet to break for me.

If what you're trying to unlock is a gun or throwable, another option is to find that item in Zombies mode and then extract with it in your inventory. This will unlock the item permanently in multiplayer.

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Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.