Warzoneis accused of being pay-to-win by its players after its latest premium battle pass introduced an unkillable dog companion that barks and growls when you’re near an enemy.
Earlier this week,Call of Duty shared details for Warzone and Modern Warfare 2’s fifth premium battle pass, BlackCell. Alongside the usual offerings like new weapon skins, operator skins, and a… talking gun screen (don’t ask), the battle pass also introduces a new operative called Arthur who comes with the game’s first “Optional Tactical Pet Companion”, which is a dog called Merlin, in this case.
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At first, the internet happily reminisced on the days ofCall of Duty: Ghost and celebrated Merlin for the good boy that he is, but now that they’ve actually gotten their hands on him, some players are calling him a clear example of Warzone being pay-to-win. For starters, Arthur and Merlin can only be unlocked by purchasing the BlackCell premium battle pass, which costs $29.99, meaning that those who don’t buy into it have no chance of unlocking the operator or his dog.
That’s all well and good if the pair don’t offer any tactical advantages but,as pointed out by Twitter user ModernWarzone, equipping Merlin has some unique effects that some could consider pay-to-win. If the player has both Merlin and the High Alert perk equipped (which usually makes the screen glow when an enemy is aiming at you outside of your line of sight), then Merlin will bark and growl at the enemy, essentially giving them an audio cue for when there’s an enemy nearby that they can’t see.
According to the Call of Duty Updates Twitter, this audio cue is in addition the ordinary visual flash that players get from equipping High Alert and not a replacement. Combine that with the fact that Merlin cannot be killed (which isdefinitelya good thing when you think about it) and it does seem like an unfair advantage for the players that have him equipped. Merlin’s unique reactionary behaviour to enemies on the battlefield also isn’t mentioned in the blog post announcing his arrival and was something only mentioned within the patch notes.
All of these factors combined have caused some players toaccuse Warzone’s latest operator of being pay-to-winsince some think that the audio cue is too much of an advantage. However, while the barking and growling might seem incredibly unfair, it’s worth noting that it’s less pay-to-win and more of a mechanic change, as other players who are around Merlin and Arthur can also hear the barks, which means that it can give away that the player has been alerted to someone being around, something that High Alert originally didn’t do.
In the video that ModernWarzone posted, it certainly does seem like Merlin offers an unfair advantage, but it seems that the mechanic is at least balanced so that it’s not just the player benefitting from it. We’ll have to see how the Warzone community continues to use Merlin before he’s deemed truly pay-to-win.
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