For most users, the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 2 update is a massive storage investment. It takes time to download, and the last thing any player wants to see is a bug manifest directly after the install. Despite this, many Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War players are being locked out of the game via a strange bug.
Multiple players have reported a bug that is locking Call of Duty: Warzone players out of the game. Rather than allowing access, this new bug is redirecting them to a purchase screen despite already having a copy of the game. While this is obviously an unintentional result, many fans are frustrated to be locked out after hours of downloading.
In a Reddit post by eortiz13, the problem is promptly showcased with a purchase screen advertising Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. this screen is displayed normally when a player attempts to access the game without a copy, yet this fan already owns a version of the game. So far, this bug only seems to be affecting Xbox players, but some PS4 and PC owners are reporting similar effects. There is barely a pattern to the update, and so far, only fan fixes are available for affected fans.
just updated my game and now it wants me to re-purchase, but redirects me to a screen that says i already own it. cant even open up the menu. anyone else experiencing this? from blackopscoldwar
Without an official patch, the main community recommendation is to uninstall and reinstall the entire game. This process would cause the game to reset its game license file and could help bypass this annoying error. Still, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is not a small file, and this can lead to even longer delays in playing the newest shooter content.
So far, fans are unsure exactly what to do. Some players are advocating for refunds in the comments, while others are wishing the player luck on the reinstall. The Reddit user eortiz13 does report that the game works after reinstalling, but that does not mean this Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War bug may not manifest once again.
So far, Activision and Treyarch have not acknowledged the bug, which suggests that it is at a small scale for the time being. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's content update has added tons of new features and experiences, so something going wrong is not outside the realm of possibility. Still, it would take a larger portion of the community for Activision to deploy a large-scale fix, so a community workaround may be all that players have for the time being,
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.