As far as I’m concerned, Call of Dutythe new DMZ mode is not only Codis the best kind of game, it’s one of the best shooter modes i’ve played in years. It’s the familiar rush of a good shooter with big roaming tactics that demand smart, reactive planning. But recent AI tweaks to this PvPvE hybrid game mode are quickly spoiling the experience for those of us trying to play with friends or, God help you, solo.
DMZ, which was created with Warzone 2.0, is an open-world game mode that uses the Al Mazrah battle royale map as a large space to gather loot, complete objectives, and engage in skirmishes with the AI and other players. It shares a lot of commonalities with games like Escape from Tarkov or even The divisionThe dark area of . At its best, the unpredictable combination of 66 players trying to achieve their own goals and hostile AI scattered throughout the map, leads to unpredictable and emergent gameplay moments that give you a ton of freedom in how you want to survive, fight, plunder and exfiltrate. The point of the mode is to survive with better loot than you came with so you can use your fun new toys in future matches. Die and you lose any progress you had on you. The premise of the mode itself is tough, but the hostile AI, however, makes the mode just plain miserable and humiliating.
“I had 3 robot armor agents standing above my body while I was self-reviving to dump a clip on me,” reads an answer to a top tweet of a meme calling the big trouble AI after a recent update. “I was waiting for them to post me on the gram with how they made me.”
Read more: 21 things I wish I had known before playing Warzone 2.0
Undoubtedly, the aggressiveness of the bots in this mode is simply out of this world, which makes them much more intimidating than other players. “Why is the AI better than the DMZ players? » Jazzberry streamer tweets. But it’s not just down to precise aiming and an ability to spot you from a distance that’s more absurd than classic stealth games where the AI couldn’t see a meter in front of them. The AI exhibits behavior that destroys any level of immersion and, honestly, fun. Check this shit:
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Whether you’re on the train orbiting the map or not, the AI exhibits a level of awareness of where you are and the ability to shoot through walls that makes it nearly impossible to respond. You can literally hide in a fully covered wagon with no lines of sight, and bullets will start flying through walls. I stopped trying to loot the train entirely because of it. Combined with their ability to respawn so quickly that clearing a base seems completely pointless and the constant recurrence of AI floating through the air, it feels like playing against someone running aimbots and other hacks.
When you consider that dying in this game mode means you’ve lost all your gear, those kind of overwhelming, inexplicable moments of near-instadeath make it deeply frustrating.
Sometimes it’s like you have to be able to shoot, reload, and land at the same time to even have a chance, and that doesn’t just happen in the more dangerous areas of the map. Looting a seemingly irrelevant building will sometimes unleash waves of fully plated AI, with backup descending from unstoppable helicopters, which overtake and outnumber you to absurd degrees. It’s even worse now than armor-piercing ammo doesn’t, uh, pierce armor anymore.
But the conversation is worth nuanced because, for those who enjoy the mode, a direct nerf across the board risks dismissing the real challenge that many, myself included, come to the game for. Right now, that balance leans too much in favor of the AI, which is difficult to a broken degree.
When you lose two-thirds of your armor the second you’re spotted and have unloaded countless amounts of ammo that shatters any difficulty claims due to “realism”, it’s hard to beat this challenge when playing. against forces that can infinitely think and outwit our gentle analog human brains.
#Warzone #DMZ #difficulty #high