Call of Duty players are fast running out of patience for the myriad of weird and wacky skins available in the game and are pleading with both the publisher and devs to tone down future cosmetic releases and consider returning to the franchise’s roots.
The Modern Warfare 3 free trial this past weekend meant franchise veterans and new players got the chance to experience the shooter in its current form. But for some, it was a culture shock of epic proportions—mostly due to the range of cosmetic skins in the game. Weapons aside, most new or returning players struggled to comprehend they were getting shot at by digital copies of characters who should never be seen setting foot in an active warzone.
“You can make cool-looking skins without resorting to the levels they’ve reached—even keep the tracer rounds—but fuck me the game looks strange now,” a player said in a June 3 Reddit thread. They then rattled off a collection of characters they had encountered, from gunners in gorilla suits to celebrity rappers and actors.
All of these characters are pretty par for the course for CoD in 2024, but maybe it is worth a step back just to see how convoluted these skins really are compared to the CoD’s of the past. “I’m having fun with the game, it just looks stupid at this point. The art style of a realistic-looking game just doesn’t match the ridiculous-looking skins that are now running around.”
“It would be cool if CoD could remember its roots like 20 years ago,” another said. These standard military-style skins already exist in the game, but most have moved on from the default characters without the bells and whistles provided by the bundles in the CoD Store. Others believe CoD’s setting doesn’t match the bulk of the skins added and that the skins would be more suited to Fortnite or Overwatch. “At least Fortnite is Fortnite and has its identity,” another player said.
It’s when the skins become a competitive issue that players are truly pissed. The almost-invisible Gaia aka “Groot” skin, first introduced back in MW2, became such a pain point that players threatened to boycott the game. It was eventually removed and reworked to fix visibility issues, but crossovers with real-life pop culture remain a staple for the shooter. And, as long as players keep spending, we won’t see the collabs dry up anytime soon.
Ultimately, it’s something that players will just have to live with going forward into Black Ops 6 and any future franchise title. “I realized that I’m old and I just need to get on with the times. Made me a lot happier while playing,” one player said.
We’ll see what Treyarch has in store for players on the cosmetic front when Black Ops 6 is revealed on June 9.
