Warzone 2 Wrath fuels wild conspiracies

Warzone 2.0 was not a universal hit with fans of call of Duty. Various gameplay and UI changes and frustrations with a slow and sometimes confusing battle pass structure have pushed many players including Advantages And popular streamers, out of the gamewith many migrations to other games or to War Zone: Calderawhere the original war zone experience lives on.

Continue reading: One of Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0‘s Biggest Streamers is taking a break

war zone has always had a scam problem, which it seems it has hold out across caldera And 2.0 despite Activision’s aggressive anti-cheat implementation. Resilient cheating, however, coupled with dissatisfaction with the situation Warzone 2.0leads some to suggest that hackers are being paid to chase away top streamers caldera. It’s an unlikely theorybut it still speaks to the disappointment of many have over the stream war zone Offer.

In a March 29 tweet, content creator ModernWarzone said allegedly that “a company pays scammers for ‘bounties’ on celebrities war zone Streamers like @its_iron.” The reason? ModernWarzone suggests, “This particular company is doing this because they don’t want people tuned in war zone [Caldera] more.” That’s a pretty lofty claim, and it’s all based on streamer its_iron’s repeated instances of stream sniping (a form of cheating in which a user views an opposing player’s live stream to effectively see where they’re making the jump on it) from a user with the activity name bell gaming13.

But there seems to be evidence that the above account managed to get into the same lobby as the snipe target in question, as well as examples of an ongoing fraud problem within it caldera, the evidence of a widespread conspiracy just doesn’t add up. What’s not so easy to dismiss, however, is that opinions are over Warzone 2.0 have definitely gone down, leading to dissatisfaction and lower overall player counts.

Claims by paid hackers are flimsy at best

The tweet, which speculates that a company is paying hackers, includes a video of popular content cod Stromer his_iron (who didn’t want to speak kotaku on the record) watch an interview between cod Stromer Comrade Grisha and the “hacker” in question: Bellgaming13. In the video, Bellgaming13 says:

I basically signed an NDA if that makes sense? So I can’t reveal exactly who that is […] it is not a specific person. It’s… I can’t really say much, but basically I like it […] All I can say is that they basically don’t want you in this game anymore. It’s like. That’s basically all I can say.

This video, which can be found on its_iron’s Twitch channel, is titled “Activision hires scammers [Stream Snipe] Caldera Players” and draws from another video by Comrade Grisha, titled “Calderagate!!! “Anybody paying hackers to take people out of Caldera???? You decide!!!!” The Twitch channel also features multiple videos of Bellgaming13 repeatedly appearing in its_iron’s games, clearly killing him through stream sniping.

Speak with kotaku, Comrade Grisha said that he encountered this stream sniper on several occasions with his crew of regular squadmates. It was suspicious enough for him and his team to contact Bellgaming13. This led to the interview where Bellgaming13 claims they “signed an NDA” and are acting on behalf of someone who wants to shoo streamers away war zone. No proof of the NDA or anything else was offered.

It seems highly unlikely that a non-disclosure agreement would protect the identities of the hackers or stream snipers, which would probably be both break the Terms of Service any war zone Players would have to agree to even be able to play at all, stopping enough to shut someone up. Break them out dismissive Johnathan Frakes Memes for this, folks.

kotaku has reached out to Activision for comment.

Repeated hacking and gameplay changes appeal Warzone 2.0 Pains

While it’s highly unlikely that, specifically in this case, there’s a coordinated campaign to pay hackers to deliberately stream-snipe streamers in order to somehow kick them out of the game, that’s clear Warzone 2.0‘s number of players began to collapse. Recently dropped below 90,000 active players, cod falls behind other popular shooters like Apex Legends, PUBGand even destiny 2.

A drop in returning players can be attributed to a few factors highlighted by the broader players cod community. Many point to the dramatic Time to Kill (TTK) Changes rate as one of the most immediate. Others see BR competitors like Fourteen days than potentially offering a brighter and more interesting future recently released Unreal Editor. Added to this is the fact that war zone 1 grew to a remarkable maturity with its various skins and cosmetics, all of which could not be transferred Warzone 2.0.

Live service games have always had a natural ebb and flow in terms of popularity. But what is clear is this war zone begins to tire a dedicated fan base, some of whom bounce back to a previous iteration of the game, while others search for answers and cling to conspiracy theories in their absence.