Call of Duty: Warzone recently received its highly anticipated Pacific update, which introduced the new tropical island map of Caldera. With such a major update, Call of Duty players likely expected to encounter some bugs. Unfortunately, it appears that some more serious issues have cropped up in Call of Duty: Warzone than were predicted. A variety of graphics and performance are plaguing Call of Duty: Warzone, of which Raven Software has acknowledged and started working on.
Social media is aflame with clips from Call of Duty: Warzone showing dozens of different visual degradation problems and performance issues that came with the game's recent Pacific patch. Two major issues seem to be prevalent. The first is that only the low-polygon models for environments are loading in, with one player describing the map as "Play-Doh Caldera." The other is an artifacting issue on weapons, making them explode into sharp angles -- a bug Call of Duty players may be familiar with.
Raven has confirmed at least some of these issues. The official Trello development board for Call of Duty: Warzone was recently updated with two issues currently being investigated. The first is for the artifacting issues players are having with their guns and/or Operators. The second is for "performance" issues specifically on PlayStation platforms. It's unclear what specific performance issues Raven is referring to, though it could be related to the low-quality environmental details.
It's perhaps worth noting that today marks the third straight day that Raven's Quality Assurance department has done walkouts following the unexpected layoffs of at least a dozen members of the team. The QA team is asking Activision to rehire its laid-off teammates, noting that management had been promising this team improved pay for months as the team crunched on developing Call of Duty: Warzone. That the QA team is needed specifically to address issues like those ongoing in Call of Duty: Warzone is undeniable.
With that in mind, there's no timeline for when these issues in Call of Duty: Warzone will be fixed. Solving the issues alone could take some time, but without Raven's QA team and with other stressors related to internal controversy at Activision, fixes may take longer than expected.
There's at least a certain charm to Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific's bugs. They can certainly make the game unplayable at times. No one wants to lag out only to explode 10 seconds later. But they make for funny clips to share online and, more importantly, are a great excuse to encourage Activision to support Raven's QA team and revert the layoffs.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.