The situation makes the ridiculous PlayStation-exclusive party XP boost all the more galling for those playing on PC and Xbox. It's hard not to think Treyarch tuned the game in the way it has because Black Ops Cold War feels thin on the ground in terms of content.
In my Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War review I touched on the grind. So, when double weapon XP ends at the end of November, it'll be back to the cripplingly slow weapon progression in Black Ops Cold War. Treyarch isn't alone in this - Infinity Ward does it with Modern Warfare, too, adding the popular Shipment and Shoot House maps one week, then taking them away the next. Annoyingly, Call of Duty developers rotate maps in and out as playlists change, preventing you from playing the game how you want to when you want to. Sure, Nuketown 24/7 and double XP makes this grind just about palatable, but they won't be around forever. Because it takes so long to unlock attachments for a weapon, I'm much less likely to experiment with other guns if I want to stay competitive. The state of Cold War's weapon grind actively discourages weapon variety, too. I am getting a bit annoyed seeing these posts after every update. Smaller games won't take as long because there isn't much that has to be copied.
The video below, from Glitching Queen, reveals a method of leveling up guns on Zombies that involves dropping out of the mode after a few rounds then starting again in order to make use of an apparent fast XP earn rate that occurs in round two and three. It's the fact that the PS4 doesn't copy just the update, it copies the whole game I believe, and Black Ops 4 is a huge file size. It's no surprise, then, to see people playing the Zombies mode in an unintended way in an effort to level up weapons faster than normal. But Cold War's grind feels miserly - even just unlocking attachments feels like pulling teeth.
Many players love it, and in previous games in the series it's certainly kept me interested in playing as I hunt down all there is to obtain for my favourite weapon. And then there's weapon mastery, which is a super long endgame grind for the coveted Dark Matter.Ĭall of Duty has always had a grind to it. There are also reticles to unlock, each one asking for a certain number of kills with a specific optic. These weapon skins are unlocked by completing certain challenges with a weapon - get five longshot medals with a gun unlocks a camo, for example. Phew!īeyond the attachment hunt (most weapons are useless until you've unlocked attachments), there's the camo grind, which I just can't see myself ever completing. I've only managed to max out one weapon so far, the AK-47, and that was only really possible with the help of Nuketown, a map you get a lot more kills on than any other in the game because it's so small and plays so fast, and the double XP buff. Developer Treyarch has tuned progression so that it takes around 1200 kills to max out a weapon - and unlock all of its attachments along the way. I think it's fair to say it takes too long to level up weapons in Black Ops Cold War.