The big Halloween update for both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone is live, and while there is plenty of new themed content for fans to sink their teeth into - noteworthy the Leatherface and Jigsaw skins for Warzone - players have been stumbling across other spooky secrets that Infinity Ward never spoke about public.
For instance, scarecrows can be found that, at first glance, seem to just be there for decoration to fit the Halloween aesthetic. As it turns out, these scarecrows can actually be quite dangerous and are capable of killing players in a single hit, despite being immobile.
One Call of Duty: Modern Warfare player, upon seeing a scarecrow for the first time, decided to attack it for scaring them. After hitting it with a melee attack, the scarecrow hopped up and a small explosion went off, leaving the scarecrow in tact and the player dead. Said player shared the clip on Reddit where David Mickner, a multiplayer designer at Infinity Ward, responded saying, "Was waiting for someone to find this."
Another Reddit user said they performed some tests to determine exactly how these scarecrows worked. According to their findings, the scarecrows can only take 350 damage before they explode (roughly four melee hits). Mickner confirmed this in a separate comment, and said damage is only applied to players that attack the scarecrow.
As can be seen in the footage, the scarecrow turns to face the player once they're close enough, about three meters away. They continue to track a player until they're six-to-seven meters away. If they're not tracking a player, they won't take any damage and, therefore, won't explode. There's also no worry of them causing team damage, and nothing can stop the explosion or protect a player from it.
Judging by the responses on Reddit, players seem to enjoy the Easter egg while sharing their own experiences with the scarecrows and another secret additions, like ghosts jumping out of lootboxes. Many are praising Infinity Ward for using the Halloween event to actively scare people, as opposed to just adding themed cosmetics.
The positivity is certainly a nice change of pace considering how heavily criticized the beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has been in some circles. Many players have expressed disappointment with how underwhelming they found it, and the beta was rampant with cheaters, especially on PC.
While the scarecrow explosion is intentional, there have also been reports of more bizarre bugs in Modern Warfare recently, such as what can only be described as the world's slowest nuke.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: Reddit