Call of Duty: Warzone Update Makes Major Balance Changes, Patch Notes Revealed

A new update for Call of Duty: Warzone has today gone live and it makes some massive alterations to the multiplayer shooter’s meta. Alongside Modern Warfare 3, Season 1 of Warzone began this past week and kicked off a whole new battle pass for players to begin churning through. Now, as a way of continuing to improve Warzone, Activision has released another new patch that should change the game’s balance quite a bit. 

For the most part, this new Warzone patch looks to nerf a number of weapons that Activision has deemed were “performing above expectation.” As a result, certain assault rifles, battle rifles, and snipers have all had their damage taken down quite a bit, which should lengthen the TTK (time to kill). Other than these changes to weapons, this Warzone update has made a big fix to audio tied to enemy footsteps. Activision has said that this first patch won’t fix the game’s audio problems entirely, but more updates are planned to roll out in the future and should continue to improve Warzone on this front. 

Until that time, you can get a full glimpse at today’s Warzone patch notes down below. 

Call of Duty: Warzone Patch Notes

GLOBAL

STABILITY & PERFORMANCE

• Addressed an issue experienced by some players that caused items previously unlocked to become unavailable to equip.

WEAPONS & ATTACHMENTS

» Assault Rifles «

• RAM-7 (MWIII)
  
  • Speedway v5 Short Barrel Attachment is now available to equip in the Gunsmith.

EQUIPMENT

• Breacher Drone
  • Improved impact detection to prevent inflicting more explosive damage to players than intended.

CUSTOMIZATION

• Crimson Fate and Carbon Fate Laser Attachment Skins will no longer appear as default Skins when equipped to Shotguns.

• Players who purchased the GG EZ Weapon Vault Bundle will now be able to use customizations on the Houndeye Integrated Optic Attachment.

• Animated Emblems are now properly rewarded upon reaching Prestige Levels 1-5.
  • Note: In the coming days, we’ll retroactively grant these items to players who met the requirements prior to today’s fix.

• The Stormender’s Priceless and Interstellar reward Emblems will now display the correct Emblem art.

WARZONE

GAMEPLAY

Battle Royale

• Strongholds
  • A Blacksite key will only be rewarded the first time a Stronghold is completed.
  • Subsequent captures by other Squads will not reward a key.

Resurgence

• Redeployment
  • The Resurgence redeployment mechanic will now be disabled at the end of Circle 3.

• Public Events
  • Public Events have been disabled in Circles 1 and 2.
  • The chances for a Public Event to occur in later Circles has been adjusted.

WEAPONS

» Assault Rifles «

• DG-56 (MWIII)
  
  • Max Damage reduced to 32, down from 40.

• FR 5.56 (MWIII)
  • Max Damage reduced to 35, down from 43.
    

» Battle Rifles «

• BAS-B (MWIII)
  
  • Max Damage reduced to 35, down from 39.
  • Min Damage reduced to 25, down from 27. 

» Handguns «

• COR-45 (MWIII)
  
  • Akimbo
    • Max Damage reduced to 30, down from 45.

• Renetti (MWIII)
  • Akimbo
    • Max Damage reduced to 22, down from 33.
    • Headshot Multiplier reduced to 1.2, down from 1.4. 

» Marksman Rifles «

• DM56 (MWIII)
  
  • Max Damage reduced to 41, down from 50.
  • Min Damage reduced to 37, down from 39.

• KVD Enforcer (MWIII)
  • Headshot Multiplier reduced to 1.8, down from 2.2.

• MTZ Interceptor (MWIII)
  • Headshot Multiplier reduced to 1.5, down from 2.

• TYR (MWIII)
  • Akimbo
    • Max Damage reduced to 70, down from 120.
      

» Shotguns «

• Haymaker (MWIII)
  
  • Max Damage reduced to 36, down from 52.
    

» Submachine Guns «

• Fennec 45 (MWII)
  
  • Max Damage reduced to 22, down from 25.
  • Headshot Multiplier reduced to 1.25, down from 1.35.
  • Lower Torso Multiplier reduced to 1, down from 1.1.

AUDIO

All Modes

• Rebalanced first person and enemy footstep audio.

Since the launch of Season 1 last week, we’ve been actively listening to player feedback regarding audio concerns in Warzone, especially related to footsteps. This initial update is aimed at addressing part of these concerns and enhancing the overall experience before we head into the holidays.

When making changes such as this, there’s a complex mix of variables we need to meticulously look at and consider. One of the primary factors to consider is the fidelity of the experience across our titles to avoid too large a gap between Warzone, Multiplayer, and Zombies. Beyond that, changes to things like occlusion, falloff distance, first-person vs third-party balance, or specific Perk mechanics, can have ripple effects due to the sheer number of interacting/overlapping sounds in a Battle Royale match.

Please know that we’re committed to ongoing improvements and to ensuring that players can fully immerse themselves in the game while maintaining a competitive edge. Your continued constructive feedback is appreciated, and we’ll continue to work towards making Warzone the best it can be on every front.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed collision issues with various elements across Urzikstan allowing Players to exploit/peek/shoot through them.

• Fixed an issue that allowed Players to get stuck inside locked buildings that should otherwise be inaccessible.

• Fixed additional issues with incorrect text appearing on Challenges.