Why Call Of Duty: Warzone's Broken Update Is Good News For Players

"Call of Duty: Warzone" players and developers dealt with a frustrating setback earlier this week, but there's reason to believe that this bump in the road was a sign of good things to come. "Warzone" has been going strong in various iterations since 2020, with the current season tying into December's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3." Despite the messy reception to the latter game, "Warzone" players have mostly enjoyed their time with recent updates. Unfortunately for dedicated players, the game's newest "Season 1 Reloaded" update launched with bugs that rendered the game nearly unplayable. This forced developer Raven Software to quickly pull some of the new features out of rotation — including the Champion's Quest game mode — and push through a series of patches in order to get the season where it was meant to be.

Before the fixes rolled out, though, players described this update as a true low point for the game. A clip from streamer FifaKill quickly began making the rounds on X (formerly Twitter), showing that the game would frequently freeze up whenever players attempted to access their loadout screen. "Call of Duty" fan account @ModernWarzone noted, "Most people can't even make it past the main menu to even attempt to play the game without running into a bug." News account @CharlieIntel added, "I think this is one of the most broken updates for Warzone in a long time. Yikes." Things got so bad that some players stopped attempting to log in, instead asking fellow gamers to alert them when "Warzone" began working again.

Warzone is unbelievably broken after the update. Here's what happens when you try to open your loadout in game.

Most people can't even make it past the main menu to even attempt to play the game without running in to a bug pic.twitter.com/Uk7M0XqrKP

— ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) January 17, 2024

With the fanbase up in arms and clips of the broken update circulating online, developer Raven Software took to social media to explain what went wrong with the new "Season 1 Reloaded" update. As it turns out, "Warzone" apparently broke because of all of the exciting content the developer is working on in the game's backend.

"We've been laying the groundwork for the return of some fan favorite features in upcoming seasons, which has required a degree of preemptive setup in our live environment," explained Raven Software's post on X. "Yesterday's update shipped with some of that work, and we unfortunately encountered a conflict between live player data and our servers." According to Raven Software, the team hit the ground running as soon as it was alerted to the issues plaguing the new update. Though players are no longer running into the game-breaking bugs seen in the update's first several hours, Raven is encouraging gamers to continue reporting any major problems they might encounter. If you find yourself suddenly stuck while playing "Warzone," make sure to send Raven Software a clip (and maybe upload it to Reddit for a laugh).

We wanted to address the issues that players encountered during the Season 1 Reloaded launch period.

We've been laying the groundwork for the return of some fan favorite features in upcoming seasons, which has required a degree of preemptive setup in our live environment....

— Raven Software (@RavenSoftware) January 19, 2024

Now that the dust is settling and players are able to join matches or check their loadouts without substantial hassle, gamers are turning their eyes to Raven's explanation for the bugs: The developer is already hard at work on a more extensive season update, and the groundwork for that new content was accidentally pushed through with "Season 1 Reloaded," causing the gridlock that players saw this week. But what might Raven Software have in store for "Warzone" players? A trip down memory lane, it seems!

Raven Software concluded its message to fans by outright apologizing for the state of the "Season 1 Reloaded" update: "We – as devs – love this game and apologize for the disruption that resulted from these events," Raven Software reiterated. "Please know that we hold ourselves to a high standard and yesterday's issues did not align with that." Thus far, the fan response to this explanation has been mixed. Although a number of noteworthy accounts — including the aforementioned @CharlieIntel and @ModernWarzone — thanked Raven for its transparency and quick action in this case, others have expressed extreme frustration with the update rollout and consider the apology to be too little, too late.

Not too long after posting the apology message and informing fans of the reasons behind this clunky start, Raven Software also provided gamers with a little tease of what its team has in store for players in future updates. The developer posted an image of a very familiar-looking tower walkway and a perk package with the Specialist logo on the front, as well as a caption explaining that these are part of "the features [Raven is] preparing for well ahead of time." This all but confirms rumors that an upcoming update will restore the fan-favorite Rebirth Island map and the super-powerful Specialist perk. 

So anyway, what are some of the features we're preparing for well ahead of time – you ask? 👀 pic.twitter.com/WhFYyCUE6P

— Raven Software (@RavenSoftware) January 19, 2024

Some of the comments show a bit of hesitation and skepticism from players who were rocked by this week's events. However, judging by the number excited reactions to Raven's post, most fans seem to feel like the game's recent issues are a fair trade, especially if it means that the developer is busting out goodies like this in the near future.