Call of Duty: DMZ slightly nerfs UAV as community braces itself for pay-to-win bundle
Roze bundle is a thorny issue.
Activision issued an update to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2.0 and DMZ overnight that includes an interesting gameplay change the community reckons is a response to a backlash over pay-to-win bundles.
Last week, Season 3 of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0 went live alongside a bundle that includes controversial "bonus effects" for the extraction mode, DMZ.
For example, the Classic Ghost Pack, which costs 2400 CP, includes a free two-plate armour vest, a 15-minute insured weapon cooldown for each of the two guns included in the bundle, and adds one more active duty operator slot for DMZ.
Most concerning, however, was a datamined Roze and Thorn bundle, which includes the Thorns Out Roze operator skin. (Roze, you may remember, is an operator from the original Warzone who caused a kerfuffle for being particularly hard to spot.)
The video below, from YouTube channel Thund3r, shows the Roze and Thorn bundle in action.
The Thorns Out skin spawns players with a free UAV which, the community had thought, could be used at the start of DMZ games. In Call of Duty, a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) reveals enemy locations on the mini-map for 30 seconds. As you'd expect, this hasn't gone down well, with players complaining the skin would give users an unfair advantage.
While the Roze and Thorn bundle is yet to come out, it looks like Activision already responded to the backlash by slightly nerfing the UAV in DMZ. Here's the change, fresh from the update patch notes:
"Added a one-minute countdown on DMZ match start before player can use UAV Killstreak."
Some players had hoped Activision would pull these bonus effects from Call of Duty in response to the online backlash, but it appears the company will attempt to mitigate their impact with balance changes instead. In truth, this UAV change is a slight nerf that will do little to calm those who feel Activision has taken Call of Duty in a worrying direction.
As redditor McMessenger put it: "I bet it still won't change the fact that you'll still see trios of Roze UAV skins bombarding into other teams with their three free UAVs they get every game, at least once that 60 seconds is up. Delaying their usage, ultimately, isn't going to fix anything - just prolongs the inevitable really."
