You’re in the middle of a Modern Warfare Zombies match, filled to the brim with loot, Schematics, and Pack-a-Punched weapons. You’re ready to face off against whatever may be in the red zone. Then a black screen shows up, and you’re teleported to the mission to extract Dr. Jansen.
That dreaded scenario has been a common sight for Zombies players since the mode launched—alongside a host of bugs such as missed battle pass progress, glitches with unlocking camos, and other occurrences. Today’s MW3 patch, however, may have delivered a silver bullet to these issues.
The Nov. 17 patch lists a litany of fixes for some of the community’s worst nightmares. Falling from the exfil chopper and being forcibly sent into story missions (especially the Act One mission to extract Dr. Jansen) had a tremendous impact on the game, but the update also shut down exploits, pushed a series of stability fixes, and allowed players to receive battle pass XP more consistently (and in some cases, at all).
The most widespread glitch teleported eligible players to a story mission whenever anyone in the lobby used the special extraction. Players were being sent to the Act One mission in droves, potentially soft-locking them from making significant progress. Closing the game during the loading screen would retain their gear, but not weapon improvements or Pack-a-Punch levels.
Another game-breaking issue would cause players to fall from the exfil chopper, forcing a fail despite taking the necessary steps to exfil. In those cases, operators would fall continuously and land below the map without any way to return to the playable area.
While not as game-breaking as these two glitches, today’s update also allowed players to make consistent progress on their battle pass when playing MWZ. This bug, in tandem with the other glitches, made Zombies even less rewarding for players who wanted to rank their battle pass before season one.
Some of these problems were slated for a fix on the Nov. 15 patch, though “unforeseen issues” caused a delay in their release. Both the patch notes and the MW3 Support Trello board indicate the release of a fix, however, so the worst has likely passed.
In addition to game-breaking issues, developer Treyarch also pushed a few improvements to game stability. Crashes and connection issues can be frustrating, especially when paired with more glitches. As a side effect, however, the team reduced the number of zombies that spawn at exfil zones—a common way for players to farm weapon XP or objectives.
The list also shows an end to duplication bugs that allowed players to have infinite Sentry Turrets placed on exfil sites, or duplicate a Juggernaut killstreak by dropping it while having the flare in hand. Between the reduced amount of zombies, the slashed amount of turrets per exfil, and assorted stability and map fixes, players may actually enjoy MWZ without worrying about losing their spoils—at least due to glitches and not monsters.
