In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone, a weapon skin is causing a stir. It is said to make a sniper stronger, although that is not intended.
There are issues: A video has surfaced on reddit showing problems with the EBR-14. When it wears a weapon skin from the Battle Pass, it is said to be stronger. An experiment in the video proves this.
Normally, skins are not supposed to make weapons stronger; they are only meant to change their appearance, but it seems there is also a technical buff involved here.
Video shows how strong the EBR-14 is with a weapon skin
This is the video: A few players wanted to get to the bottom of this and tested it thoroughly. In the clip, “ChickenYug” is seen giving his teammate a headshot with a modified EBR-14, without a skin. He stands still and survives it.
After that, the weapon is switched, and the EBR-14 with the “Line Breaker” skin comes into play. It has the same attachments as the EBR without a skin. A similar headshot suddenly becomes fatal, even though the opponent had fully healed again. The sniper with the right skin seems to have received a damage buff, even though a skin is not supposed to have any influence on that.
How is the video received? The clip has now received over 16,000 upvotes. Many other players see it as evidence that weapon skins can actually influence damage. There is even a statement saying that this is Pay-to-Win since you can only get the Battle Pass skin by paying money.
Other players are downplaying the situation. They believe it is more of a nasty bug and hope that Infinity Ward will respond quickly. As maulla said on reddit: “This is a bug and not Pay-to-Win. Reddit can be so dramatic sometimes.”
Why is everyone screaming Pay-to-Win? For the predecessor of the current Modern Warfare, Black Ops 4 from 2018, there was harsh criticism for the loot boxes. It heavily depended on chance whether you got your favorite weapon in the right version or missed event weapons through the boxes. Some players feel reminded of that now.
However, there has been little criticism in this direction regarding Modern Warfare so far. Instead of the controversial loot boxes, Infinity Ward introduced the system of Battle Passes and scored points with the players.
