A new exploit in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone is turning an underbarrel shotgun into a long-range powerhouse, but developer Infinity Ward says it’s working on a fix. Call of Duty Season 5 recently launched, bringing plenty of exciting new content to the game, but also leaving plenty of bugs intact and introducing some new issues.
Modern Warfare is no stranger to exploits and outright cheating. An exploit that popped up late last month allowing players in multiplayer matches to see their enemies’ positions at the start of a match, giving them a huge advantage off the bat and riling up pro players who’d been on the receiving end of the unsporting behavior. Infinity Ward has taken action to ban cheaters in the past, though it hasn’t been enough to curb the practice entirely. After a recent crackdown, some players claim that they were wrongfully caught up in the ban waves, some of whom actually had their bans reversed.
Among plenty of more wide-ranging updates for Call of Duty Season 5, a number of weapon tweaks were also introduced. One of those increased the effective range of the FR 5.56 assault rifle, but that change seems to have had some unintended consequences. As it turns out, when players use the underbarrel shotgun shotgun on the FR 5.56, they’re able to get one-shot kills at ridiculous ranges. Streamer TheXclusiveAce did some testing on the FR 5.56 shotgun attachment and found that it could kill an enemy with full health and full armor plates at up to 15 meters. TheXclusiveAce theorizes that the upgrade to the FR 5.56’s range was mistakenly applied to its underbarrel shotgun as well. Infinity Ward is aware of the issue and says that it’s working on getting a patch out to correct it as soon as possible.
As Infinity Ward works to get this latest exploit fixed, it’s already got its hands full with some other problems. A persistent graphics glitch has recently started popping up again, turning players into glitched masses of textures and bringing an unsettling character to some multiplayer matches. Infinity Ward is also working to correct this issue. Meanwhile, players have been reporting items falling through Modern Warfare's maps, with seemingly no fix in sight.
There have certainly been loadouts for particular weapons in Call of Duty that allow players to dominate before, but nothing quite like this. Specific builds will always allow skilled players to get more out of their weapons than using them with their stock equipment, but it crosses the line when players are using something that clearly isn’t working as intended to get a leg up. There are plenty of assault rifles better than the FR 5.56 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, so there’s really not much reason to use it outside of taking advantage of this momentary flaw.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone are available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.