Yet another controversy has hit Infinity Ward’s upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The community is up in arms over a leak that claims that the game will include actual weapon microtransactions instead of just cosmetic ones.
The information came from known Call of Duty leaker TheGamingRevolution (no relation), who posted a series of tweets ranting about the change. “Weapons are coming too, forget any cosmetic only malarkey” stated TGR’s initial tweet. The latter refers to earlier reports that the game would only feature cosmetic microtransactions.
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Microtransactions have been one of the most controversial aspects of recent Call of Duty games. Specifically, last year’s Black Ops 4 received criticism from the community over its supply drop system, which had weapons exclusive to it. Players felt that it was unfair to lock weapons behind a loot box-style system that was itself tied to a pay-wall.
In light of the leak, fans on the game’s community subreddit are unsurprisingly furious about the news. Many are calling it a bigger issue than the recently revealed Survival Mode being a PlayStation 4 exclusive. As part of this, a number of reddit posters have stated that they are canceling their preorders for the game.
Interestingly enough, most of the posters in the reddit thread don’t seem to actually be mad at developer Infinity Ward. Instead, the redditors’ ire seems to be directed more towards publisher Activision. Even one of TGR’s tweets echoes the same sentiment: “This is such a disservice to the developers who have worked so hard on the game,” he stated. ” Not everyone wants this.”
Now, all of this is based on a leak. Neither Infinity Ward nor Activision have revealed Modern Warfare‘s microtransaction system. When asked about it by Dexerto, lead developer Joe Cecot stated that “we can’t really comment on MTX or our systems for that right now.” However, Cecot did follow up by stating that “we’re pushing really hard to create a player-first or player-forward system.”
Most of the information about Modern Warfare‘s microtransactions supposedly being cosmetic only actually came from one of TGR’s leaks. An insider within Infinity Ward supposedly told them that they were wanted to keep the weapon DLC free: “As of right now, we want all DLC weapons to come free for everyone,” stated TGR’s source. However, the same source also stated that “this may change,” and that Activision would have the final say.
In a way, it could be said that the anger may be misplaced, since it stems from false expectations that were raised by a previous leak. However, it is hard to dismiss the community’s existing issues with the previous game’s microtransaction system and the fear that the new game will also have them. Even outside of the initial leak, the return of weapons in supply drops does not seem to represent a “player-first” system as initially stated by the developer.
Of course, being a leak, there is the possibility that what TGR has revealed is wrong. However, the leaker has reliably given out leaks about the Call of Duty franchise before. This includes leaking the return of Zombies mode for both Black Ops 3 and Black Ops 4, and the early PS4 beta for Modern Warfare. All this does not bode well for anyone hoping that the leaks aren’t real.
These weapon microtransactions aren’t the only recent Modern Warfare related leak from TGR. Earlier this month, TGR revealed details hinting that a battle royale mode would be included, details that were backed up by data found in the recent beta’s files. Whether or not this as well as the weapon microtransaction leak is true, players will most likely find out after Modern Warfare launches on October 25.
