Warzone 2 helicopters are randomly exploding

A close-up of a fire.
(Image credit: Nitat Termmee via Getty images.)

Call of Duty: Warzone 2 has delivered its fair share of amusing glitches so far, as well as the hacked-in flying boats which was probably my favourite bug of 2022, and the latest may be the most show-stopping yet. Helicopters are a prominent part of the game as it stands, and probably the premiere way to zip around Al Mazrah, but now players are running into a bug that will, mid-flight, cause the vehicle to spontaneously explode.

The exploding chopper bug can be seen in the below video from *checks notes* latenitelover. It doesn't appear to be too widespread in the game, but it's also not clear what happened in the clip in question: the explosion is so instantaneous as to suggest the player flew into an invisible wall.

Another player commented that this is a glitch which had been seen in the original Warzone and, though I don't recall that specific issue, helicopter issues have been a minor theme for the battle royale series and Warzone 2. A classic around launch was this helicopter flying through a skyscraper and somehow still killing players while doing so:

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In general the issues tend to involve the helicopters' interactions—or not—with the scenery, with many examples of the vehicle clipping through things, behaving unpredictably, or as in this case, simply seeming to spasm mid-air rather than actually flying anywhere.

The issue has not yet appeared on the game's Trello board, though heavy choppers have been disabled since December 16 for balance reasons. It is noted there however that plenty of PC users experiencing issues might want to look into updating their GPU drivers, with Raven claiming this will "drastically reduce" crashes and so on. Not sure whether that'll stop your choppers from spontaneously exploding, though.

Rich Stanton

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."