A new cosmetic bundle introduced on April 12 in the Call of Duty store is a cause for pay-to-win concern in its extraction mode, DMZ.
The “Bomb Squad” bundle in the store offers some new advantages to DMZ players, including a fourth Active Duty Operator slot, which is otherwise unobtainable thus far. But even the included operator skin and weapon blueprint have unique perks.
The “Boom Proof” blueprint for the SAKIN MG38 LMG has a bonus effect exclusive to DMZ, as can be seen in the bottom right of the screenshots above, offering an insured weapon cooldown time of 15 minutes, which shortens the time that it can be used again if lost in an infiltration.
Meanwhile, the “EOD Specialist” operator skin for Fender also comes with its own DMZ bonus effect. The skin comes equipped with its own free Medium Backpack, which is loot that must otherwise be found or used from the player’s inventory.
Related: How to switch Operator skins in Active Duty slots in DMZ
And it looks like this bundle is just the beginning. A future bundle featuring the Roze operator was data mined from the update and posted to Reddit. According to the data mine, that skin will come equipped with its own UAV killstreak.
DMZ players in the replies were unsurprisingly none too pleased, with many jumping to call the UAV pay-to-win.
“Alright the backpack, whatever, but a free UAV?” one commenter asked. “Is that on every infil? That’s [pay-to-win].”
When one commenter said that DMZ was being ruined “before it ever makes it out of beta,” another commenter posed the idea that Activision is testing the waters to see what can be done while it’s still in beta, so it can be rectified if player response is negative enough.
“The beta batch might be the way out,” the commenter said. “If this terribly misfires they might do a 180 on this. Unlikely but possible.”
For now, the Bomb Squad bundle is available to purchase in the store for 1,200 CoD Points.
