In the wake of Activision’s swift response to what was a rather major flaw in the newly launched Modern Warfare 2, fans are now wondering when the key gameplay system will be reinstated in a fixed state. Ever since pinging mechanics were popularized in team-based shooters by the Battle Royale genre, they’ve become a staple, and its absence is impacting the experience for many. The reason why Infinity Ward had to step in and gut the feature entirely was due to a bug that allowed players to co-opt is as essentially a “wallhack”. Pings allow teams to easily communicate by marking and highlighting objects, weapons, locations or other players on their screens, which seems like a simple enough mechanic. However, a bug caused pings placed on enemy players when waiting to respawn to persist through the entire match. These pings would follow that player, constantly marking their position, and would be present on the UI regardless of whether that player is visible or not, making them an easy target and trivial to track. The first report of this bug to gain major traction appeared on r/ModernWarfareII, and this was the post that let the news spread across the gaming community. Players have since chimed in saying that now they realize that instances of assumed wallhacking was just this bug manifesting.
Infinity Ward and Activision have yet to officially address the situation, but they are clearly aware of it, hence the disabling of the ping system. There currently is no word on when the bug will be fixed and the pings brought back, likely as the developers themselves are still investigating. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the series’ big launch this year, being a sequel to 2019’s rebooted Modern Warfare. Following a staggered release schedule that saw pre-order customers gain access to the campaign early, MW2 has launched to expected financial success, coupled with some criticisms and smaller controversies. This major bug in the multiplayer mode joins criticism about the tone of the campaign, with one particular section asking players to “de-escalate” a situation by pointing weapons at unarmed civilians. On the flipside, the realistic graphics in the game’s Amsterdam level drew a lot of positive publicity. We’ll leave it to you to decide which of those deserves more attention. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
