Why Is Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Broken in 2023?

Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War 5
Credit: Activision


Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War 5
Credit: Activision

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War came out back in 2020, so in 2023, it's a few years old and it's by no means the focus of either Activision or Treyarch. This is no new thing, either, it's pretty familiar territory for an older Call of Duty to get little to no attention after later games come out. However, there are some serious problems with Black Ops Cold War.

So, in this article, we'll explain why Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is broken in 2023 in the hopes we'll see Treyarch make some changes.

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Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War

Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War
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Credit: Activision

One of the biggest current issues with Black Ops Cold War comes down to its party system.

First up, there's an incredibly common glitch where you won't be able to hear your party members or they won't be able to hear you. Usually, this requires you to both restart your game or entire system for voice chat to resume working, and sometimes, that doesn't even work and you just have to queue and wait for the glitch to resolve itself.

Then, there's the issue of parties breaking up when you're queueing, loading into a match, during a game, or loading out of a match. You'll just suddenly notice that your party has closed, and you'll have to invite everybody once again. This tends to happen more with full six-person parties or if you've got people across multiple different platforms.

Lastly, there are random issues with partying up. Sometimes, you won't be able to join somebody's party for seemingly no reason, and you'll have to restart. Sometimes, joining a party will get you instantly disconnected from the party or instantly disconnect someone else from the party.

Altogether, it's a frustrating, inconsistent issue that needs attention.

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Server Problems in Black Ops Cold War

Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War 2
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Credit: Activision

The servers of Black Ops Cold War weren't always riddled with issues, but they certainly are now.

Frequently, you'll load into a lobby where, at the start of a game, everyone gets the 'Connection Interrupted' error that stops everybody in the lobby from moving or doing anything until, anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes later, the lobby itself will close down and kick everyone out.

You'll also see a glitch where you'll be playing a game when suddenly you get kicked out of the game and get an error telling you that the game session is no longer available. Sometimes, this will happen to everybody in a lobby, but sometimes, just half the lobby will get kicked, and the game will continue on in a weird 3v4 type way when it should be 6v6.

Then, of course, you'll just lag sometimes. More than you would before. Even with a strong internet connection, some games your ping will just be all over the place, or you'll start teleporting around the map. It won't be because there's an issue with your actual internet but rather because there's something going wrong with the server you're connecting to.

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Hackers and Cheaters in Black Ops Cold War

Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War 3
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Credit: Activision

Hackers and cheaters have always been a part of Call of Duty, and it's well-known that once a particular game is a few years old you'll see more people start to hack and cheat.

Then, of course, with something like a Cronus that ties itself to your controller and can be used on any console, there just isn't and hasn't been a good way of detecting that. Furthermore, Call of Duty's dedicated anti-cheat system on PC, where most of the cheaters and hackers are, wasn't introduced to the franchise after Black Ops Cold War.

Nonetheless, the amount of hackers in Cold War, right now, is rather depressing. Every couple of games you'll run into a cheater or, god forbid, a party of cheaters, and what's worse is that it won't be subtle. And it's not just about hackers using an obvious aim bot or something like that.

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Oftentimes, cheaters will change their display name to something like "IUseWalls" with the 'HACK' clan tag, and you'll watch them go 25 and 0 in Search while obviously cheating. Still, though, you'll probably run into that same hacker again a couple of hours or days later, because it doesn't seem like Treyarch is bothering to issue many bans in Cold War anymore.

Random Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War

Party Bugs and Glitches in Black Ops Cold War 4
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Credit: Activision

Then, there are just random issues with Black Ops Cold War that have been part of the game for a long time but just don't seem to ever be fixed.

If you're playing Search and Destroy, for example, and try to edit a loadout while you're dead but the round happened to end while you're in your loadout menu, the loadout menu will get stuck on your screen.

Similar thing with whispers. If you're whispering someone when you're dead but the round ends while you're still writing out your whisper, the whisper menu will get stuck on your screen and the onscreen keyboard will keep popping up as you try and play unless you go back into the whisper screen and then back out of it.

Related: Why Are So Many People Still Playing Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War?

Then there are random oversights, like the scythe melee weapon. Since it was introduced, unintentionally (it seems) it's been allowed to be used in the games Sniper Only mode which traditionally only allows for the usage of snipers and nothing else. But it's never been updated so you can't do that.

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