Chest, Stomach, Head, Limbs – these are actually the typical hitboxes in Call of Duty and accordingly in the Battle Royale Warzone. However, the developers have hinted for some time that there is something in between. Now, Warzone expert Anthony “TrueGameData” Zachman has researched the details.
How long has Call of Duty: Warzone been on the market now? Almost 1.5 years? Phew, by now every gameplay mechanic in this Battle Royale should have been discovered, researched, and utilized. But at least one mechanic has eluded the full understanding of the experts around Warzone until recently: the neck hitbox.
Through the official patch notes, we already knew that there is a “neck multiplier.” However, no one had taken the time to investigate the corresponding hitbox. TrueGameData has now taken the time to do so and believes that the discoveries will have a significant impact on the meta. MeinMMO presents his findings.
Neck hitbox between chest and head is larger than expected
What kind of hitbox is this? The so-called neck hitbox is located between the hitboxes of the chest and head. Not every weapon has its own multiplier for the neck. In that case, you deal chest damage with “neck hits.”
Weapons with extra neck damage provide a decent advantage for players who land safe chest hits and don’t necessarily always go for the more difficult headshots. We’ve included an image with the various hitboxes:
- Green hitbox: Limb damage
- Yellow hitbox: Stomach damage
- Red hitbox: Chest damage
- Light blue hitbox: Neck damage
- Blue hitbox: Headshot damage
TrueGameData emphasizes that the colored areas are depicted as accurately as possible. However, testing the areas is very difficult, and small deviations cannot be excluded.
How do the values change with a hit? There are hardly any general statements to be made about the now researched neck multiplier – there is no consistency with this value, other than that damage increases when a multiplier is present.
For example, the submachine gun Bullfrog has no neck multiplier, while the OTs 9 has a multiplier at headshot level. If you hit the neck with the OTs9, it counts as a headshot. The weapon values become somewhat less transparent due to this. Warzone provides little info about the damage of individual weapons in its Gunsmith, and many players look for information about their firearms outside the game.
With the now clearly shown neck multiplier, a weapon can already have 5 different damage values in the first damage range and another 5 in the second, perhaps even in the third damage range.
If you want to check the neck values, visit TrueGameData’s homepage (via truegamedata.com). We’ve embedded the English video on the neck hitbox here:
Hitbox penetration and sniper mysteries
What else is there to know? In connection with the research on neck damage, TrueGameData also discovered an interesting behavior of the hitboxes. There is a type of penetration that ensures that you always deal the highest hitbox damage that the bullet grazes.
If you shoot bullets from the side at your enemy, you usually hit the arm of the opposing operator. However, the bullet penetrates and thereby hits the chest, perhaps even the neck. In such a case, the hitbox with the highest damage is counted. If you were to hit the same spot on the arm from the front, you would only get the low limb damage because the bullet does not touch other hitboxes.
By the way: If you want to be part of the MeinMMO team for multiplayer shooters, then check this out:
Which weapons benefit the most from this? A statement about a consistency can actually be made – the large sniper rifles benefit greatly from neck damage. For a long time, some hits with snipers in Warzone were a small mystery because the hits did more damage than they should have. The reason was likely the neck damage.
No matter if from CoD MW or Cold War – a neck hit causes over 200 damage and down those enemies who only carry 2 armor plates.
- Large snipers with neck damage
- HDR
- AX-50
- Rytec AMR
- M82
- LW3 Tundra
- ZRG
Additionally, TrueGameData found 3 weapons that cause neck headshot damage and thereby significantly enlarge the hitbox of the head: Oden from CoD MW, as well as XM4 and OTs 9 from Cold War.
TrueGameData assumes that the new findings will have a significant impact on the weapon meta in Warzone. However, how the neck multiplier will affect things will only be seen in the coming days and weeks. After all, we’ve been playing with this since the release, but only now are there numbers on it.
Perhaps small weapon mechanics from CoD Vanguard could have a greater impact on the gameplay, but that remains to be seen.
