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Call of Duty Warzone Season 1 recently got underway, and it ushered in a huge drop of new weapons thanks to its integration with Black Ops 6. These new armaments are meant to coexist alongside all the ones added over the last two years with MW2 and MW3, but one has mysteriously gone missing. However, if there was one weapon that I wish would vanish of the face of the Earth, it’d be this one. Whether by accident or intentionally, Raven Software has removed the Riot Shield from Call of Duty Warzone.
While there is a sect of Call of Duty players that enjoy using the Riot Shield in both Warzone and the annual premium releases too, they are absolutely in the minority. Alongside my personal hatred of shotguns, the Riot Shield will always take the top spot as the most maddening, anti-fun, and blasphemous weapon in CoD. In some FPS games, they work just fine, especially if they’re a class-based ability rather than a permanent weapon. In Call of Duty, though, they absolutely suck to play against, and I know I’m not alone in thinking that. A weapon that encourages sitting in a corner and turtling, and that also helps prevent you getting shot in the back even when you’re not using it, should be banished to the shadow realm.
The fact that Black Ops 6 launched without a Riot Shield was already a blessing, but Raven has seemingly decided to double the good news. The MW2 and MW3 Riot Shield should still be in Warzone’s arsenal, however players have today realized it’s nowhere to be found. The weird thing is, Raven hasn’t announced that it was going to do this – it’s not even mentioned in the gigantic set of Season 1 patch notes that were released prior to the update.
So, is it a bug? It seems unlikely. Even with notable influencers and community figureheads posting on social media about its disappearance, there’s been no acknowledgement from any official CoD channels about a weapon being unintentionally removed. There’s nothing relevant to the Riot Shield on the Warzone developer’s Trello board either.
That all feels to me like this was absolutely intentional – maybe it wasn’t mentioned beforehand in order to not alienate or piss off Riot Shield enjoyers, but they’d notice the change as soon as they went to select or tinker with their loadouts. While it’s certainly strange, I’m definitely not complaining. I feel like it’s inevitable that the Riot Shield will return in Black Ops 6 and Warzone as a seasonal weapon at some point down the line, but until that day, you and I can now enjoy the new Area 99 map without the fear of coming up against one of CoD’s all-time worst gameplay elements.
If you’re looking for more titles like Warzone to add to your library, here are the best battle royale games on PC right now. These free PC games are also great for folks that love live service, competitive gaming.
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