MW3 Ranked Play delayed due to ‘critical issue’ following Season One Reloaded update

Gone before we even had a chance to play.

MW3 Ranked Play
Image via Activision

Modern Warfare 3 Ranked Play was supposed to launch today as part of the Season One Reloaded update, but players will have to wait longer after a day full of unexpected glitches.

Recommended Videos

One day before the mid-season update went live, the CoD: MW3 devs announced that Ranked Play wouldn’t launch immediately at the start of Season One Reloaded. Community members didn’t complain too much as they expected the game mode to just launch a few hours later instead.

Ranked Play operators
The painful wait continues. Image via Activision

But mayhem broke loose when the patch went live on Jan. 17, and game-breaking glitches made Warzone unplayable. Raven Software was forced to disable Champion’s Quest contracts, and the problems extended to multiplayer as the devs delayed Ranked Play further.

Why was Modern Warfare 3 Ranked Play delayed?

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, MWIII Ranked Play will be delayed while we investigate a recently discovered critical issue,” the CoD devs announced.

Treyarch did not provide a timeline for the fix but promised Ranked Play would be available soon.

Ranked Play fans were also thrown for a loop when the mid-season update went live as the devs unexpectedly changed the Hardpoint locations and spawns on Invasion, Highrise, Terminal, Sub Base, and Karachi.

Season One Reloaded even shook up what should be the Ranked Play meta before the game mode goes live. Based on the Call of Duty League, all matches will feature players using an MCW or Rival-9. But the mid-season update increased the MCW’s sprint-to-fire time from 220 milliseconds to 241 and nerfed the 16.5″ MCW Cyclone Long Barrel and RB Regal Heavy Stock attachments. The Rival-9 also had its horizontal recoil slightly decreased.

Ranked Play competitors may also need to adjust their killstreak strategy as Trophy Systems no longer block Cruise Missiles. But none of these changes will mean anything without having Ranked Play access to test everything.

At this time, it’s unclear exactly when Ranked Play will go live in MW3.

Author
Image of Ryan Lemay
Ryan Lemay
Ryan graduated from Ithaca College in 2021 with a sports media degree and a journalism minor. He gained experience as a writer with the Morning Times newspaper and then Dexerto as a games writer. He mainly writes about first-person shooters, including Call of Duty and Battlefield, but he is also a big FIFA fan. You can contact him at ryanlemay@dotesports.com.