The Warzone experience offers a lot of things for battle royale fans to be excited about, but audio isn’t one of them, and according to players, the situation is seemingly a lot worse after Warzone 2 was rebranded to Warzone with MW3’s launch.
Take, for example, this Reddit post uploaded on Dec. 6, which, in a long rant, talks about how “atrocious” the audio is in Call of Duty Warzone—even after its season one patch which dropped on Dec. 6. The player named u/Croue highlights the irony of not being able to hear the footsteps of an enemy close by but can detect an enemy moving around on a roof roughly 20 meters away.
“You can hear someone slam a door open or jump through a window on the total other side of a building, but if they are sprinting down a hallway straight for you or jumping around or even shooting, you can’t hear a thing at all,” Croue wrote, citing one in many examples aptly describing the state of audio in the game. “Someone could be 5m away sprinting at full speed and there is ZERO audio to be able to tell which direction they’re moving or if they are even moving at all.”
As expected, several players resonated with Croue’s rant, calling out Activision for not reworking Warzone’s audio despite all the obvious flaws. “THERE IS NO ACTUAL FOOTSTEPS SOUND YOU CAN HEAR,” one frustrated player wrote in a comment, and as much as it sounds weird for a competitive battle royale not to have footsteps and considering all the complaints, something is definitely wrong with the way footsteps currently work in Warzone.
Another Reddit post highlighted the same issue, narrating an experience where they had a full team rushing on them with zero audio clues until they were barely five meters away.
Footsteps are a crucial tactical factor since they let you guess an enemy’s location and prepare for an upcoming fight. But with Warzone’s footstep audio being so badly designed, players can’t take advantage or rely on it at all. Players also pointed out how silent gunshots sound at times, leading to wrong location predictions on their part. Interestingly, it’s not just Warzone; players reported audio anomalies in MW3 Zombies mode as well.
Having played a few Warzone games of my own in recent times, I find all the reports relatable as well, although with the devs not paying heed to complaints for so long, I’ve been teaching myself to adapt to it. But considering the present state and the community’s growing frustration, Activision must consider reworking the audio design or it won’t be long before players begin to quit playing the game altogether.
